Investigating mitochondrial differentiation in adipogenesis

Adipocytes are professional fat storing cells that are central to systemic energy homeostasis in all vertebrates. These cells sequester excess nutrients as triacylglycerols (TAGs), which are stored in
organelles called lipid droplets (LDs). The development of adipocytes from non-specialized precursors is known as adipogenesis. Adipogenesis triggers fundamental remodeling of metabolism
which depends on comprehensive "differentiation" of mitochondrial function. This includes a poorly understood switch from catabolism to anabolism to provide precursors for fatty acid synthesis. The
remodeling of mitochondria occurs on transcriptional, metabolic and cell biological level. My first project is to extract key factors involved in mitochondrial differentiation from adipocyte
differentiation transcriptome time profiles, which I will validate with mitochondrial proteome analyses. I will focus in parallel on the elucidation of principles that pattern the mitochondrial
surface by "in trans clustering" at organelle contact sites involving the metabolic contact site protein mitoguardin-2. A second work package is aimed at bringing the subprojects together to understand
which metabolic modules identified in part I are possibly controlled by the organization of mitochondrial machinery at contact sites.

BBSRC Priority Areas Covered:
- Food, nutrition, and health
- Systems approaches to the biosciences