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RESEARCH FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY OF NKUA OVERTURNS CURRENT KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING THE MECHANISM OF SUBCELLULAR TRAFFICKING OF MEMBRANE PROTEINS

An important research article by the team of Prof. George Diallinas (http://scholar.uoa.gr/diallina) of the Department of Biology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens is published today in the leading scientific journal EMBO Reports (Translocation of nutrient transporters to cell membrane via Golgi-bypass in Aspergillus nidulans, S. Dimou, O. Martzoukou, M. Dionysopoulou, V. Bouris, S. Amillis and G. Diallinas).

The work was performed by Sofia Dimou (Ph.D. student), Dr. Olga Martzoukou and Dr. Sotiris Amillis, assisted by Mariangela Dionysopoulou (Ph.D. student) and Mr. Vangelis Bouris (undergraduate student). The work was financed by a donation of the “S. Niarchos" Foundation and from a research grant from Fondation Santé to Prof. G. Diallinas.

This article reveals a novel mechanism of subcellular trafficking and targeting of membrane cargoes, and especially of transmembrane transporters, proteins which mediate cell nutrition, homeostasis and communication. The significance of the discovery lies in the fact that it overturns long-lasting knowledge described in textbooks that argued that Golgi and associated secretory pathways are at the base of topogenesis of all major membrane proteins, such as transporters, receptors or channels. Prof. Diallinas team instead showed that newly formed transmembrane transporters are translocated to the cell membrane directly from the Endoplasmic Reticulum via a special type of COPII vesicles, bypassing the Golgi.

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Link for the article:

https://www.embopress.org/doi/10.15252/embr.201949929