Rescue of Lipid-Induced Autophagy Inhibition by Torin1 Treatment

Autophagy is an essential cellular process that degrades proteins and organelles and autophagy dysfunction is a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, understanding how autophagy is regulated by lipid signaling factors can potentially reveal therapeutic targets for these diseases. Our lab has identified 3 lipids (5-oxo-ete, stearic acid and hydroxystearic acid) that repress autophagy using a lipidomic mass spectrometry screen of serum. RNA sequencing data suggests that mTOR might be affected by these lipids. We have therefore hypothesized that the 3 lipids inhibit autophagy by activating mTOR. To determine if these 3 lipids utilize mTOR for autophagy repression, we will treat differentiated human SH-SY5Y cells (neuron-like cells) with each lipid in the presence or absence of the mTOR inhibitor, Torin 1. Autophagy will then be assessed through examination of LC3-II protein levels by western blot. Our results will add to our understanding of the molecular mechanism of action for these 3 autophagy-repressing lipids which could ultimately aid in the development of treatments for neurodegenerative disease

The SPARC Intercomparison of Middle Atmosphere Climatologies

Our current confidence in 'observed' climatological winds and temperatures in the middle atmosphere (over altitudes approx. 10-80 km) is assessed by detailed intercomparisons of contemporary and historic data sets. These data sets include global meteorological analyses and assimilations, climatologies derived from research satellite measurements, and historical reference atmosphere circulation statistics. We also include comparisons with historical rocketsonde wind and temperature data, and with more recent lidar temperature measurements. The comparisons focus on a few basic circulation statistics, such as temperature, zonal wind, and eddy flux statistics. Special attention is focused on tropical winds and temperatures, where large differences exist among separate analyses. Assimilated data sets provide the most realistic tropical variability, but substantial differences exist among current schemes