AUTOPHAGY IN PATHOPHYSIOLOGY

PROJECTS

The main focus of the team is to understand the importance of autophagy and the selective autophagy of mitochondria (the so called mitophagy) processes in physiological conditions such as aging, neurodevelopment. Also, we aim to better understand how these processes are deregulated in pathologies such as neurodegenerative diseases, muscular disease and to develop tools to manipulate them. We believe that our goals are of the utmost importance in the biology of neurogenerative diseases, but also in the context of muscular diseases since autophagy is deregulated in many of these disorders. To this end, we are combining techniques such as biochemistry (western-blotting, immunoprecipitation, kinase assay etc…), confocal microscopy analysis, in vivo manipulation of autophagy in brain of mice (injection of AAV encoding autophagic proteins or fluorescent reporters of mitophagy; nanoparticle manipulation etc.).

The current projects of the team are to:

1. better characterize the beneficial role of a variant of the autophagic receptor NDP52 in the context of Alzheimer’s disease
2. investigate the importance of mitophagy in the context of neurodevelopment
3. better understand the autophagy/mitophagy regulation in striated skeletal muscle and in the context of Myotonic Dystrophy type 1

 

JOB OFFERS

FUNDINGS

• Fondation Alzheimer
• Ligue contre le cancer
• ANR-Arqus
• AFM-Téléthon

 

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Sélection de publications

Mattioni A, Carsetti C, Bruqi K, Caputo V, Cianfanelli V, Bacalini MG, Casa M, Gabelli C, Giardina E, Cestra GL, Strappazzon F. A natural variant of the autophagic receptor NDP52 counteracts phospho-TAU accumulation and emerges as a protective factor for Alzheimer Disease. Cell death & disease. 2025, 16(1), 300.

Bruqi K, Strappazzon F. Autophagy and Selective Autophagy Receptors: Key players against Alzheimer’s Disease. Neural Regeneration Research, 2025, in press.

Naso FD, Stagni V, Strappazzon F. MCF-7-Derived Mammospheres: A Model for Assessing Cancer Stem Cell Response and Vitality to Anti-Cancer Therapy, Methods in Cell Biology Series on Cell Death, 2025in press.

Bruqi K, Strappazzon F. NDP52 and its emerging role in pathogenesis. Cell Death Dis. 2025;16(1):359.

Di Rita A, Maiorino T, Bruqi K, Volpicelli F, Bellenchi GC, Strappazzon F. miR-218 Inhibits Mitochondrial Clearance by Targeting PRKN E3 Ubiquitin Ligase. Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Jan 5;21(1):355

Di Rita A, Angelini DF, Maiorino T, Caputo V, Cascella R, Kumar M, Tiberti M, Lambrughi M, Wesch N, Löhr F, Dötsch V, Carinci M, D’Acunzo P, Chiurchiù V, Papaleo E, Rogov VV, Giardina E, Battistini L, Strappazzon F. Characterization of a natural variant of human NDP52 and its functional consequences on mitophagy. Cell Death Differ. 2021 Aug;28(8):2499-2516.

Di Rita, A., & Strappazzon, F. A protective variant of the autophagy receptor CALCOCO2/NDP52 in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Autophagy. 2021 17(6), 1565–1567

Naso FD, Bruqi K, Manzini V, Chiurchiù V, D’Onofrio M, Arisi I, Strappazzon F. miR-218-5p and doxorubicin combination enhances anticancer activity in breast cancer cells through Parkin-dependent mitophagy inhibition. Cell Death Discov. 2024 Mar 21;10(1):149.

Naso F, Strappazzon F. Combining doxorubicin and miR-218-5p: a new strategy to fight breast cancer? Autophagy Reports 2024 10.1080/27694127.2024.2342129

Mattioni A, Carsetti C, Bruqi K, Caputo V, Cianfanelli V, Bacalini MG, Casa, Gabelli C, Giardina E, Cestra GL, Strappazzon F. A variant of the autophagic receptor NDP52 counteracts phospho-TAU accumulation and emerges as a protective factor for Alzheimer Disease. Preprint medRxiv 2024. 08.13.24311780).

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TEAM ACTIVITIES / UPDATES

Jade Ravent was promoted from technician to superior technician.

Lauréline Boutonnet received a travel grant from the French Society for Cell Biology to attend the EMBO Workshop “Muscle Development, Maintenance & Pathology: In Vitro Models to Physiology”, which will take place in Crete in October 2026.

Krenare Bruqi participated as an Arqus Ambassador at the last meeting helded in Germany.

Marion Carpentier received the award for Best Oral Presentation at the CFATG 12 meeting in Nice 2025 and at the Women in Autophagy 2025 meeting.

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