Sandra Encalada, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Arlene and Arnold Goldstein Professor of Molecular and Experimental Medicine
Research Focus
Our lab is interested in characterizing the interactions between molecular motors and their vesicular cargo to regulate axonal transport in neurons. We use a combination of cell biology, genetics, biochemistry, and high-resolution microscopy in mammalian neurons and in the soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, to identify and characterize motor-cargo regulatory complexes. We also seek to integrate and extend our knowledge of motor regulation to dissect the role that defective vesicular transport plays in the accumulation of misfolded proteins inside axons, and scrutinize the hypothesis that this contributes to or causes neurodegeneration. We use mammalian and C. elegans systems to build models of protein aggregation diseases including prion diseases, Alzheimer's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), tauopathies, and transthyretin (TTR) amyloidosis-related diseases, to characterize the role of motor-based transport in toxicity and infectivity.
Select Publications
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Chaiamarit, Tai; Verhelle, Adriaan; Chassefeyre, Romain; Shukla, Nandini; Novak, Sammy Weise W.; Andrade, Leonardo R.; Manor, Uri; Encalada, Sandra E. Mutant Prion Protein Endoggresomes are Hubs for Local Axonal Organelle-Cytoskeletal Remodeling. bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2023.
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Chaiamarit, Tai; Wu, Yin; Verhelle, Adriaan; Encalada, Sandra E. Fluorescence Assays for Real-Time Tracking of Cell Surface Protein Internalization and Endosomal Sorting in Axons of Primary Mouse Hippocampal Neurons. 2023, 13, e4651.
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Ardejani, Maziar S.; Bollong, Michael J.; Botham, Rachel C.; Cano-Franco, Sara; Chen, Wenbo; Chou, Ching C.; Cole, Christian; Cuoco, Caroline A.; Dikic, Ivan; Elia, Lisa P.; Encalada, Sandra E.; Finkbeiner, Steven; Finley, Daniel; Fox, Susan; Frydman, Judith; Garza, Dan; Haggarty, Stephen J.; Hansen, Malene; Hou, William C.; Ibrahim, Lara H.; Jiang, Starr; Johnson, Kristen A.; Kelly, Jeffery W.; Kline, Gabriel M.; Ko, Yeonjin; Labra, Sergio; Lee, Kyunga; Lipton, Stuart A.; Lyang, Nora J.; Massey, Lynee A.; Meneses, Alina; Morimoto, Richard I.; Nelson, Luke T.; Peng, Hongfan; Petrassi, H. M.; Powers, Evan T.; Prado, Miguel A.; Sanz-Martinez, Pablo; Silva, M. C.; Stolz, Alexandra; Ta, Amina; Tan, Ee P.; Verhelle, Adriaan; Wiseman, R. L.; Wu, Yin; Wulkop-Gil, Cristian; Xiao, Qiang; Xu, Jin; Yoon, Leonard; Yu, Anan mTOR inhibitor-independent Autophagy Activator Ameliorates Tauopathy and Prionopathy Neurodegeneration Phenotypes. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - bioRxiv 2022.
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Chassefeyre, Romain; Chaiamarit, Tai; Verhelle, Adriaan; Novak, Sammy Weise W.; Andrade, Leonardo R.; Leitão, André D G; Manor, Uri; Encalada, Sandra E. Endosomal sorting drives the formation of axonal prion protein endoggresomes. 2021, 7, eabg3693.
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Nieto-Torres, Jose L.; Shanahan, Sean- L.; Chassefeyre, Romain; Chaiamarit, Tai; Zaretski, Sviatlana; Landeras-Bueno, Sara; Verhelle, Adriaan; Encalada, Sandra E.; Hansen, Malene LC3B phosphorylation regulates FYCO1 binding and directional transport of autophagosomes. Curr Biology 2021, 31, 3440-3449.e7.
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Madhivanan, K.; Greiner, E. R.; Alves-Ferreira, M.; Soriano-Castell, D.; Rouzbeh, N.; Aguirre, Carlos A.; Paulsson, J. F.; Chapman, J.; Jiang, X.; Ooi, F. K.; Lemos, C.; Dillin, A.; Prahlad, V.; Kelly, Jeffery W.; Encalada, Sandra Cellular clearance of circulating transthyretin decreases cell-nonautonomous proteotoxicity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2018, 115, E7710-E7719.
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