In 2021 Fall semester, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will be holding seminar series every Friday between 3:30pm-4.30pm starting on Sep 3rd (second week of the semester). The seminars will be presented either virtually via BbCollaborate or in person (Room SCI 1.210).

The second seminar of the series will take place on Friday Sep. 10th and will be delivered in person (Speaker: Dr. Tai-Yen Chen, University of Houston; Host: Dr. Gabriele Meloni). In light of the class de-densification guidelines, this seminar will also be live-streamed via MS Teams. The link can be provided upon request (please contact Dr. Gabriele Meloni at gabriele.meloni@utdallas.edu).

Title: Cu-dependent CTR1 oligomerization and Cu-uptake regulation

Abstract: Copper enters cells through pores formed by trimeric Human copper transporter 1 (hCTR1). Elevated Cu induces clathrin-dependent endocytosis of hCTR1 and decreases the hCTR1 surface abundance by half.  However, it remains unclear how cells minimize the Cu-uptake activity of the remaining surface hCTR1.  This study examined the oligomeric states of hCTR1 complexes in fixed COS7 cells using super-resolution localization microscopy and single-molecule oligomeric state quantification assay.  We found that the hCTR1 on the plasma membrane exists dominantly in the trimeric form (~80%) under basal conditions and shifts to monomeric states (~50%) under Cu stressed conditions. This finding suggests cells may further modulate the oligomer distributions of the surface hCTR1 to reduce cellular Cu-uptake and provide insight into the hCTR1 transport mechanism.

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