Assist. Prof. Alex Lyakhovich from Sabanci University is going to be at SABITALKS on February 25, 2025 at 14:00. The event will take place in person. You can attend the event in person in C Block, 1st Floor, Senate Room.
Location: Istanbul Medipol University Kavacık North Campus: https://goo.gl/maps/JDDjygVtFLWiPiMJA
*Participants from outside SABITA must fill in the participation form.
The hypothesis of a significant shift from oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) to glycolysis in a number of solid tumors has been dominant for many years. Recently, however, evidence has begun to accumulate that OXPHOS is a major mode of energy production in many neoplasms, particularly those that have undergone chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and especially in chemoresistant malignancies. In the present work, we demonstrated that chemoresistant triple-negative breast cancer cells prefer to obtain energy via OXPHOS to a greater extent than cells sensitive to chemotherapeutic agents, and therefore the former can be affected by some OXPHOS inhibitors. From a drug library containing several hundred antimicrobials, we selected those that inhibit OXPHOS in resistant TNBC cells and lead to mitochondrial dysfunction. We have also identified several pathways by which inhibition of growth suppression of chemoresistant cells occurs, including increased oxidative stress and mitophagy. Experiments in mice showed that selected OXPHOS inhibitors preferentially suppress tumor growth from chemoresistant but not from chemosensitive cells. The results of the present study suggest combinatorial therapy of such inhibitors and conventional anticancer drugs on resistant forms of tumors, if the latter show enhanced OXPHOS.
The research interests of my lab focus on the role of mitochondria in pathological conditions. Mitochondria are amazing organelles that we inherited from prokaryotic cells about a couple billion years ago. Since then, they have lived in the great eukaryotic house, helping us breathe and paying for the accommodation with the universal biological currency, ATP. They are also a major source of generating reactive oxygen species (ROS), which play a regulatory role in the process of life and programmed cell death.
As we age, mitochondrial function declines, they gradually lose their respiratory activity, and damage accumulates in their mitochondrial genome. Similarly, our organs deteriorate differently over time, so for the same chronological age, the biological age of mitochondria in them is also different, which manifests itself in a different set of mitochondrial dysfunctions (MDF). MDF influence a wide range of human pathologies, including cancer, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. Understanding how this puzzle works in the context of the living organism is an ongoing challenge of our research, conducted on several fronts: