Nicole S. Rivera ESpinal fecha: 12/11/2014#:13

3Rd Seminar October 23, 2014 Mr. Jorge Martinez : The Role of Arrestins in Glucose Starvation-induced Protein Endocytosis

This seminar presents the idea of using Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast cell to study the glucose traffic. Mr. Martinez pointed out how these cells undergo the process of endocytosis, which is an energy-using mechanism where cells consume molecules. He noticed that when these cells receive a large amount of glucose nothing happened, but if they lack glucose then they begin to auto digest. This process is known as autophagy. He also mentioned that the protein adaptors called arrestin adapt to the membrane so glucose can pass. When these adaptors lack glucose, they do not have where to adhere and the vacuole starts to eat itself. They could confirm this behavior by working with two experimental groups that had sufficient glucose and two control groups that had limited access to glucose for 2 hours. Following the pathways using green fluorescent protein, they conclude that the environmental cue process affects autophagy and lifetime between cells. This research is very important because cellular glucose availability is crucial for the functioning of diverse biological processes.