Keke Hu

Abstract:

Stress granules (SGs) are membrane-less organelles that assemble in the cytoplasm under unfavorable conditions, which is closed related with cancers and neurodegenerative diseases etc. To understand how SGs contribute to physiological functions, we used electrochemical measurements to detect oxidative stress-induced granules and investigate the effects of them in neurotransmission. We found that reactive oxygen species (ROS) are encapsulated inside arsenite-induced SGs, and H2O2 is the main species,which implicates SGs as communicators of the cellular stresses rather than a simple endpoint. In addition, the number of transmitter molecules released from single vesicles of Chromaffin cells decrease significantly while the production doesn’t show obvious alteration. This may explain how SGs regulate cellular metabolism and stress responses,which helps better understanding their cytoprotective functions in pathological conditions associated with SGs such as neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), cancers and viral infections.