Lavanya Gupta Rose Hills
Mechanisms of Mitochondrial Neuroprotection in Arctic Ground Squirrels
Every 40 seconds, someone in the U.S. has a stroke, 87% of which are ischemic, caused by blocked blood flow to the brain. As a leading cause of disability, stroke demands urgent neuroprotective therapies.
Arctic ground squirrels (AGS) exhibit remarkable resilience to extreme conditions, with their cells surviving hypoxia and metabolic stress better than those of mice and humans. Identifying pathways that make mouse neural cell mitochondria function more like AGS cells could provide valuable insights for ischemic stroke treatments that preserve neural viability and enhance recovery post-stroke in humans. This project aims to enhance ischemia resistance in mouse neural cells by overexpressing mitochondrial pathways linked to AGS resilience. Specifically, does overexpression of specific components of the respirasome supercomplex (mitochondrial complexes I, III, and IV), contribute to how AGS cells withstand metabolic stressors?
This project hypothesizes that overexpressing subunit NDUFA4 (Complex I), subunit UQCRC1 (Complex III), and subunit COX7A2L (Complex IV) in mouse neural cells increases resilience to severe ischemia, mirroring AGS cells’ phenotype.
Message To Sponsor
I am sincerely grateful for your generous support of my summer research project. Your funding allows me to pursue my passion for translational neuroscience and to continue growing in my academic and scientific journey. I am excited to delve deeper into my project and contribute to uncovering new mitochondrial mechanisms of neuroprotection inspired by the Arctic ground squirrel.