Endolysosomal dysfunction and exosome secretion: implications for neurodegenerative disorders

Authors:

André M. Miranda1,2,3,4 and Gilbert Di Paolo1,2,5

Affiliations:

1 Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York City, NY 10032, USA.

2 Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Medical Center, New York City, NY 10032, USA.

3 Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), School of Medicine, University of Minho, Braga 4710-057, Portugal.

4 ICVS/3B’s, PT Government Associate Laboratory, Braga/Guimarães 4710-057, Portugal.

5 Present address: Denali Therapeutics Inc, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA.

Keywords: 

extracellular vesicles, endomembrane damage, galectin, phosphoinositide, phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate, lysobisphosphatidic acid, LBPA, sphingolipids, phospholipids.

Corresponding Author(s):

Gilbert Di Paolo, Denali Therapeutics Inc, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA dipaolo@dnli.com

Conflict of interest statement:

The authors declare no competing financial interests. G.D.P. is a full-time employee of Denali Therapeutics Inc.

Please cite this article as:

André M. Miranda and Gilbert Di Paolo (2018). Endolysosomal dysfunction and exosome secretion: implications for neurodegenerative disorders. Cell Stress 2(5): 115-118. doi: 10.15698/cst2018.05.136

© 2018 Miranda and Di Paolo. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.

Abstract:

Growing evidence suggests that endolysosomal and autophagic defects are key pathogenic processes in various neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The causal relationship between these defects and neurodegeneration is supported by human genetic studies identifying disease mutations in genes controlling endolysosomal function and autophagy. The canonical view is that defects in these processes lead to impaired lysosomal clearance of proteins prone to form toxic oligomeric assemblies and/or aggregates, ultimately resulting in cellular pathologies that define these disorders. Because lysosomes mediate the clearance of a large number of lipids, lipid storage is frequently associated with compromised endolysosomal and autophagic function. However, an emerging notion, supported by our recent study on class III phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) Vps34, is that neuronal endolysosomal and autophagic dysfunction can manifest itself with the occurrence of physically damaged endomembranes and with the release of exosomes enriched for Amyloid Precursor Protein COOH-terminal fragments (APP-CTFs) as well as atypical phospholipid bis(monoacylglycero)phosphate (BMP). Here, we summarize our recent findings and their potential implications in the context of lysosomal biology, lipid signaling and neurodegenerative diseases.