Dr. Ana Maria Cuervo
Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology and of Medicine. Institute for Aging Studies.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Bronx, NY, USA

Selective autophagy in the fight against aging and age-related disordersDr. Ana Maria Cuervo
Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology and of Medicine.
Institute for Aging Studies. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA, 10461Cells count on surveillance systems to handle protein alterations and organelle damage. Malfunctioning of these systems contribute in large extend to the abnormal accumulation of those altered components in cells and tissues in numerous diseases and in aging. In this webinar I will discuss the contribution of autophagy to maintenance of proteostasis. Autophagy is an essential catabolic cellular process that assures maintenance of the cellular energetic balance as well as an efficient removal of any intracellular damaged structure. Growing evidence supports that functionality of the autophagy system is compromised with age and that intact autophagy is required to sustain longevity. In addition, alterations in autophagic pathways have been linked to the pathogenesis of detrimental age-related pathologies, such as neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases. In this webinar I will describe recent findings on the molecular effectors and regulators of different types of selective autophagy and studies in support of a reciprocal interplay between pathogenic proteins such as alpha-synuclein, or tau and autophagic pathways. I will also comment on the consequences of the functional decline of autophagy with age and in age-related disorders and some efforts to chemically modulate autophagy activity to enhance the cellular response against proteotoxicity.