iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Michele Frison

Osman Lab @osman-lab.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

🧬 Introducing the #mtDNA Lab Intel Pipeline! Our system daily scans PubMed and bioRxiv to bring you: 📄 #Gemini generated Daily Dossiers (PDF) and 🎙️ #NotebookLM generated Podcasts with a focus on #mtDNA-QC and #mtDNA-copy-number 📂 Full Archive: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Square, neon-colored illustration announcing a “Daily Briefing” on mtDNA, showing mitochondria, DNA, AI icons, literature stacks, exercise symbols, and a bar graph, in a futuristic purple-pink style.

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Good morning everyone, below is last issue of #mitophagy news 🪫 🔋 🗑️ biomed.news/bims-tofagi/... This week you'll find insights on the role of mitophagy in germline cells and in inheritance of mtDNA, in mice and in the male arabidopsis germline Thanks to @biomednews.bsky.social for pre-sorting

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

Welcome to another week of mitophagy papers! 🪫🗑️ biomed.news/bims-tofagi/... highlights: -A rab1 A Rab1 interactome illuminates a dual role in autophagy and membrane trafficking -a review on the role of superoxide in mitophagy -USP15 inhibition ameliorates PD phenotype in mouse models of disease

Figure 1. Rab1A and Rab1B MitoID ident ifies novel Rab1 effectors. (A) Schematic of the Rab1-MitoID approach in which Rab1 is fused to the promiscuous biotin ligase BirA* and a mitochondrial localization signal from monoamine oxidase (depicted in red), resulting in the relocalization of Rab1 to the mitochondrial membrane. Rab1 interactors will be efficiently biotinylated, while other Golgi proteins and Rab interactors are not. (B) Two-dimensional plot comparing the enrichment of proteins biotinylated by Rab1A-MitoID vs control (BirA alone), plotted against the enrichment of proteins biotinylated with GTP-locked Rab1A (QL) vs GDP-locked Rab1A (SN). For the x axis, the value plotted is that for the nucleotide form of Rab1 that gave the greatest fold change over background. For clarity, Rab1A itself is not shown, as it is part of the BirA* construct. Known effectors and regulators are indicated, with known effectors being enriched in the upper right quadrant. Zoomed regions to the right show a region demarcated by well-enriched known effectors with novel proteins of note identified. For all protein identities and enrichment values see Table S1. (C) as for (B) except with Rab1B rather than Rab1A. (D) Overrepresented GO terms for biological process of the proteins within the regions demarcated by known effectors shown in B and C with the known effectors removed. Ranking is by the summed FDR and enrichment rank. (E) Immunoblots of binding to GST-Rab1A–coated beads of the indicated proteins from HEK293A cell lysates. Rab1A was either Q70L (GTP) or S25N (GDP). The known Rab1 effector RABEP1 (rabaptin-5) is included as positive control (Valsdottir et al., 2001). Source data are available for this figure: SourceData F1.

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Not gonna lie, it does kind of feel like that

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Reposted by Michele Frison

Sam J Wilson @samjwilsonphd.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

How does fever work? Our new Science paper shows how elevated body temperature can protect against severe influenza and that avian-origin viruses escape this defence. This is likely one reason why bird flus and some pandemic influenzas can be so severe.🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Avian-origin influenza A viruses tolerate elevated pyrexic temperatures in mammals

Host body temperature can define a virus’s replicative profile—influenza A viruses (IAVs) adapted to 40° to 42°C in birds are less temperature sensitive in vitro compared with human isolates adapted t...

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Reposted by Michele Frison

RyanLab_TCD @ryanlab.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

📢Last 2 weeks of #immunometabolism discoveries @biomednews.bsky.social ⬇️⬇️ biomed.news/bims-imicid/... biomed.news/bims-imicid/... Exciting to have a paper in the collection! An inherited mitochondrial DNA mutation remodels inflammatory cytokine responses in macrophages and in vivo in mice

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

In this week's mitophagy news: -a novel screen for endogenous modulators of PINK1-Parkin pathway uncovers unstudied dependencies -autophagy regulation by phase separation, avidity and wetting -a bacterial mitophagy receptor to evade inflammation biomed.news/bims-tofagi/...

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Reposted by Michele Frison

Journal of Cell Biology @jcb.org · 21/11/2025

Liu et al. discover that pathogenic bacteria use a shared strategy to exploit the host’s cellular recycling process, #mitophagy. Through an effector protein that acts as an external receptor, bacteria suppress inflammatory responses to promote #infection rupress.org/jcb/article/... #Autophagy

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Really nice and clear summary :)

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Only good papers on mitophagy this week! biomed.news/bims-tofagi/... Highlights: -The bottleneck for maternal transmission of mtDNA is linked to purifying selection by autophagy -Piecemeal Mitochondrial degradation in plants -Allophagy?! Thanks to @biomednews.bsky.social

Altered bottleneck and mitochondrial turnover affect mtDNA mutation load and selection efficiency.
(A) Mutational burden was quantified as the total number of mtDNA variants detected per animal. (B) For each animal, the mtDNA N/S ratio was calculated by dividing the number of nonsynonymous variants, normalized to the number of possible nonsynonymous variants in the mitochondrial genome, by the number of synonymous variants, normalized to the number of possible synonymous sites. For (A) and (B): dashed line, median value of the Polg+/+ control group; dotted line, modal value of the Polg+/+ control group; gray, Polg+/+ control group; orange, Polg+/+ Tfam+/− group; blue, Polg+/+ Tfam+/OE group; green, Polg+/+ Bcl2l13−/− group; and pink, Polg+/+ Ulk2−/− group.

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Mitophagy updates of last week 🪫🗑️ biomed.news/bims-tofagi/... Highlights: -two papers on the beneficial effects of mitophagy in CD8+ T cells -VPS35 mutations in PD affect PINK1/Parkin mitophagy selectively -review on selective autophagy initiation Thanks to @biomednews.bsky.social for pre-sorting

Left, soluble SARs such as SQSTM1/p62, NDP52, OPTN, TAX1BP1, and NBR1 are cytosolic proteins that are recruited to cargo on demand. Their recruitment is commonly driven by ubiquitin (Ub) marks on damaged or misfolded cargo, enabling rapid and flexible targeting of diverse substrates. Upon recruitment, these SARs concentrate autophagy initiation factors at the cargo site to initiate autophagosome biogenesis. Right, transmembrane SARs such as NIX, BNIP3, FAM134B, and CCPG1 are stably integrated within organelle membranes. To prevent unwanted autophagy activation, these SARs require additional layers of control. Selective autophagy can be triggered by transcriptional upregulation (e.g., hypoxia-driven induction of NIX/BNIP3), post-translational modifications such as ubiquitination, or SAR clustering. ER-phagy SARs further promote local membrane bending and scission to excise a portion of the organelle for autophagic removal. While some SARs are transcriptionally induced, others—such as FAM134B—are constitutively present and rely primarily on clustering and post-translational regulation, providing SAR-specific modes of control over autophagosome formation.

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Reposted by Michele Frison

Christian Frezza @frezzalab.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Wonderful work from @mito-oncogene.bsky.social and @edreznik.bsky.social on the role of mito ribosomal RNA in cancer.

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

In this week's issue of mitophagy news 🗑️🪫 biomed.news/bims-tofagi/... -High sugar diet inhbits renal mitophagy and disrupts renal function -a review by @soleimanpourlab.bsky.social on mitophagy in diabetic ß-cells -Optineurin is necessary for mitochondrial removal during erythrocyte maturation

Assessment of mitophagy in the Malphigian tubules of the dmt-Keima Drosophila kidney

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Reposted by Michele Frison

Scott Soleimanpour @soleimanpourlab.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

New from us! Had a question about mitophagy but were afraid to ask? 😂 Excited to review the latest advances in beta cell mitophagy research as a key adaptive response in all forms of diabetes in @cp-trendsendomet.bsky.social. We'd be honored if you have it a read! #T1D #T2D

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Reposted by Michele Frison

Jack Collier @mitocollier.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

🔥 Check out our new paper! @natcellbio.nature.com Also thanks to @embo.org for their Postdoctoral Fellowship and especially to Mai and Heidi, I learned more than I could ever have imagined in Montreal 🇨🇦 🍁

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Thank you so much 🥹 🗑️🪫❤️🥚

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

Thank you so much Cory! Keeping a look out for more great science from your side

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Reposted by Michele Frison

Johannes Zuber @johanneszuber.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Just out in @science.org: Together with the lab of @wilhelmpalm.bsky.social, we used sequential in-vitro/in-vivo CRISPR screens to decipher metabolic adaptations in tumors. We find that acidosis is a dominant factor that shapes energy metabolism and stress resilience. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Thank you so much Alessandro! Hopefully see you again sometime soon!

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Thank you Alex, for your help throughout this project and your ubiquitin and mitophagy wisdom! I was really luck to end up working in the same institute as your lab

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Thank you so much Elias!! The situation in vivo is quite complex, but there's evidence for a role of receptor-mediated mitophagy in germline purifying selection. We still don't know though, if it's two parts of the same mechanisms, or two consecutive QC phenomena journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

journals.plos.org

A role for BCL2L13 and autophagy in germline purifying selection of mtDNA

Author summary We have addressed the role of autophagy on purifying selection of mtDNA by mating different autophagy-deficient mouse models, including knockouts of Parkin, Bcl2l13, Ulk1, and Ulk2, to ...

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Thank you so much Viktor :) Thank god you published your paper on NAD+, autophagy and cell death! The choice of galactose in Figure 4 is all thanks to your lab!! And seeing that the survival experiments followed what you observed was such an important sanity check

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Thank youuu 😍😍 This would have been nothing without your Western blotting teachings

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Thank you so much Dylan🤸 without your encouragement and wishes it would have taken even longer 🤣🤣

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Thank you so much @soleimanpourlab.bsky.social! It's a pleasure to contribute to the community

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

And cannot forget the mention Lisa, Luisca and Julien from @prudentlab.bsky.social b.bsky.social, who gave me lots of advice throughout the process. And same to @labwhitworth.bsky.social! Your ubiquitin expertise was essential in making this happen.

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Last, but not least, I would like to thank all the members of @mitocamb.bsky.social and of the Chinnery lab, without whom none of this would have been possible. This is a fantastic place to work!!

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Importantly, we were able to replicate our finding in vitro using not one, but two different systems to inhibit USP30. One of them shows the viability of a therapeutic strategy using small molecule USP30 inhibitors for heteroplasmic mitochondrial disease, which affects 1:8000 people

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

But this is also a very exciting finding for #mitophagy! When a sperm fertilises an oocyte, a wave of autophagy is activated, but increasing mitochondrial ubiquitination can boost mitophagic quality control and remove mutant mtDNA. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Autophagy Is Essential for Preimplantation Development of Mouse Embryos

After fertilization, maternal proteins in oocytes are degraded and new proteins encoded by the zygotic genome are synthesized. We found that autophagy, a process for the degradation of cytoplasmic con...

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

By comparing the Usp30-mediated heteroplasmy shift from mother to offspring between different types of crosses, we were also able to extrapolate the exact timing of selection, the maternal zygotic transition!! This is an ideal timing for clinical treatment, exploitable during In Vitro Fertilisation

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Therefore, restoring mitochondrial ubiquitination by constitutively knocking out Usp30 decreases heteroplasmy from mother to offspring. This process is extremely important for mitochondrial disease patients carrying heteroplasmic mutations, around 1:8000 people.

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Interestingly, we found that the mutation does not decrease levels of specific mitophagy protein (e.g. Parkin or PINK1), but rather, mildly, decreases the expression of the proteasome and of many E2 ligases and a few E3s, never previously linked to mitophagy

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

The impairment of mitophagy is a survival mechanism for the mutation, allowing it to unspecifically increase the total amount of mtDNA and restore absolute copies of WT mtDNA, even at high heteroplasmies!!

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Bluesky, I am pleased to present to you the main product of postdoc work, published in @science.org ☝️ As it turns out, the very quality control mechanism that can remove mutant mtDNA copies is the one that maintains high mutant burden, or heteroplasmy levels

High heteroplasmy decreases mitochondrial ubiquitination

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

How can mitophagy be an effective quality control mechanism if mtDNA mutations reach high enough levels to cause disease? This question led us into a dark path, full of concepts of evolutionary genetics, germline stem cell biology and mito-nuclear compatibility. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

Ubiquitin-mediated mitophagy regulates the inheritance of mitochondrial DNA mutations

Mitochondrial synthesis of adenosine triphosphate is essential for eukaryotic life but is dependent on the cooperation of two genomes: nuclear and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). mtDNA mutates ~15 times as...

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Reposted by Michele Frison

Scott Soleimanpour @soleimanpourlab.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

🚨How do mitochondria sense and respond to metabolic stress from the environment in diabetes? 🤔 In new work out in #ScienceAdvances, we show that innate immune signaling promotes β cell compensation for metabolic stress by engaging mitophagy. 🚨1/n www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

TRAF6 integrates innate immune signals to regulate glucose homeostasis via Parkin-dependent and Parkin-independent mitophagy

TRAF6 bridges innate immune signaling to mitophagy to promote glucose control during metabolic stress.

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 05/10/2025

In this week's mitophagy news 🪫🗑️ biomed.news/bims-tofagi/... ⚡The PP2A-B55α phosphatase is a master regulator of mitochondrial degradation and biogenesis⚡ -Mitochondrial ROS triggers mitophagy through activating the DNA damage response signaling pathway Thanks to @biomednews.bsky.social

PP2A-B55α activates TFEB upon mitochondrial damage to support Parkin-dependent mitophagy.

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Reposted by Michele Frison

Mongabay @mongabay.com · 02/10/2025

Jane Goodall, who revealed the intimate lives of chimpanzees and gave the modern world a language of hope, has died at the age of 91. “Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference,” she told audiences. Those words remain her truest epitaph.

news.mongabay.com

Jane Goodall (1934–2025): primatologist, conservationist, and messenger of hope

Jane Goodall, who revealed the intimate lives of chimpanzees and gave the modern world a language of hope, has died at the age of 91. Over the course of six decades, she moved from an unlikely young…

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

That's fascinating! So much to learn from comparative studies

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Lots of interesting papers in this week's mitophagy news! 🗑️🪫 biomed.news/bims-tofagi/... -Ubiquitin precursor with C-terminal extension promotes proteostasis and longevity -Pink1 KO leads to APP-induced dopaminergic pathology -An OMM-rupture sensor

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Michele Frison @frisophagy.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

In this week's issue of mitophagy news 🪫🗑️: -Urolithin A increases healthspan via MERCS and Ca2+-mitophagy -Parkin Induces Ubiquitination and Large Extracellular Vesicle Release of HMGB1 to Activate Antitumor Immunity -a Parkin and hTau mouse cross biomed.news/bims-tofagi/...

Urolithin A ameliorates the age-dependent decline of ER-mitochondria contacts and alters intracellular Ca2+ balance.

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