Functional genomics of organelles
Maya Schuldiner Lab
Understanding Peroxisome Functions

Associate Staff Scientist:
Dr. Einat Zalckvar
Head of peroxisomes group
Dept. of Molecular Genetics
Meyer Bldg. Room 122
Weizmann Institute of Sciences
Rehovot 7610001, Israel
Office Tel: +972-8-9529035
The Mysterious Peroxisomes
Research
Peroxisomes are fascinating organelles that are found in almost all eukaryotes. Peroxisomes participate in central pathways of cellular metabolism such as β-oxidation of fatty acids, amino acid catabolism and detoxification of reactive oxygen species as well as in recently identified non-metabolic processes such as antiviral innate immunity. Peroxisomes have complex biogenesis and degradation possibilities, are actively distributed during cell division and possess their own targeting and translocation machineries. Additionally, peroxisomes are remarkably diverse in shape, size, number and content. This diversity depends on the cell type and environment, and can be rapidly regulated in response to diverse signals. Hence, peroxisomes represent a dynamic and complex system that has biological ‘inputs’ and whose biological processes could be modelled with enough information to predict ‘outputs’.
Additionally a large number of peroxisomal disorders with dramatic phenotypes have been described and malfunctions in peroxisomes contribute to the etiology of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, aging, cancer and type 2 diabetes.
We are using systems cell biology approaches in yeast in an attempt to understand peroxisomes as a complete biological system.
We are specifically interested in:
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Identifying new functions of peroxisomes
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Discovering new peroxisomal proteins
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Identifying peroxisome contact sites with other organelles
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Systematically characterizing the peroxisome proteome under different conditions
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Further understanding how proteins are targeted to peroxisomes
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Identifying the peroxisomal protein quality control machinery



ERC CoG 646604

Peroxisome Team Members

Dr. Ofir Klein
Postdoctoral fellow

Lior Peer
PhD Student


Mor Angel
PhD Student
Olga Beresh
M.Sc Student
Publications
original research
Pls1 Is a Peroxisomal Matrix Protein with a Role in Regulating Lysine Biosynthesis
Determining the targeting specificity of the selective peroxisomal targeting factor Pex9
Eden Yifrach, Markus Rudowitz, Luis Daniel Cruz-Zaragoza, Asa Tirosh, Zohar Gazi, Yoav Peleg, Markus Kunze, Miriam Eisenstein, Wolfgang Schliebs, Maya Schuldiner, Ralf Erdmann, Einat Zalckvar
Systematic multi-level analysis of an organelle proteome reveals new peroxisomal functions
Eden Yifrach, Duncan Holbrook-Smith, Jérôme Bürgi, Alaa Othman, Miriam Eisenstein, Carlo Wt van Roermund, Wouter Visser, Asa Tirosh, Markus Rudowitz, Chen Bibi, Shahar Galor, Uri Weill, Amir Fadel, Yoav Peleg, Ralf Erdmann, Hans R Waterham, Ronald J A Wanders, Matthias Wilmanns, Nicola Zamboni, Maya Schuldiner, Einat Zalckvar
Beyond rare disorders: A new era for peroxisomal pathophysiology
Einat Zalckvar and Maya Schuldiner
​Peroxisome function relies on organelle-associated mRNA translation
Noa Dahan, Yury S Bykov, Elizabeth A Boydston, Amir Fadel, Zohar Gazi, Hodaya Hochberg-Laufer, James Martenson, Vlad Denic, Yaron Shav-Tal, Jonathan S Weissman, Naama Aviram, Einat Zalckvar, Maya Schuldiner
A piggybacking mechanism enables peroxisomal localization
of the glyoxylate cycle enzyme Mdh2 in yeast
Journal of Cell Science 2020
Shiran Gabay-Maskit, Luis Daniel Cruz-Zaragoza, Nadav Shai, Miriam Eisenstein, Chen Bibi,
Nir Cohen, Tobias Hansen, Eden Yifrach, Nofar Harpaz, Ruth Belostotsky, Wolfgang Schliebs,
Maya Schuldiner, Ralf Erdmann and Einat Zalckvar
Pex14p Phosphorylation Modulates Import of Citrate Synthase 2 Into Peroxisomes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Front Cell Dev Biol 2020 August
Functional Analyses of a Putative, Membrane-Bound, Peroxisomal Protein Import Mechanism from the Apicomplexan Protozoan Toxoplasma gondii
Genes 2018
Alison J. Mbekeani , Will A. Stanley , Vishal C. Kalel , Noa Dahan , Einat Zalckvar , Lilach Sheiner , Wolfgang Schliebs , Ralf Erdmann , Ehmke Pohl and Paul W. Denny
An alternative membrane topology permits lipid droplet localization of peroxisomal fatty acyl-CoA reductase 1
J Cell Sci 2019
Tarik Exner, Inés Romero-Brey, Eden Yifrach, Jhon Rivera-Monroy, Bianca Schrul, Christos C. Zouboulis, Wolfgang Stremmel, Masanori Honsho, Ralf Bartenschlager, Einat Zalckvar, Margarete Poppelreuther, Joachim Füllekrug
Genome-wide SWAp-Tag yeast libraries for proteome exploration
Nat Methods. 2018 Jul
Weill U, Yofe I, Sass E, Stynen B, Davidi D, Natarajan J, Ben-Menachem R, Avihou Z, Goldman O, Harpaz N, Chuartzman S, Kniazev K, Knoblach B, Laborenz J, Boos F, Kowarzyk J, Ben-Dor S, Zalckvar E, Herrmann JM, Rachubinski RA, Pines O, Rapaport D, Michnick SW, Levy ED, Schuldiner M.
Systematic mapping of contact sites reveals tethers and a function for the peroxisome-mitochondria contact
Nat Commun. 2018 May
Shai N, Yifrach E, van Roermund CWT, Cohen N, Bibi C, IJlst L, Cavellini L, Meurisse J, Schuster R, Zada L, Mari MC, Reggiori FM, Hughes AL, Escobar-Henriques M, Cohen MM, Waterham HR, Wanders RJA, Schuldiner M and Zalckvar E.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells lacking Pex3 contain membrane vesicles that harbor a subset of peroxisomal membrane proteins
Biochim Biophys Acta. 2017
Wroblewska JP, Cruz-Zaragoza LD, Wei Y, Schummer A, Chuartzman SG, de Boer R, Oeljeklaus S, Schuldiner M, Zalckvar E, Warscheid B, Erdmann R, van der Klei IJ.
Reviews and book chapters
OEPM 2018
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Coming Up
October 12th 2023, 4pm (Israel time)
TBD
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Previous Talks
October 2022
The role of ether phospholipids in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders
Prof. Johannes Berger, Medical University of Viena, Austria
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July 2022
Structure of the peroxisomal retro-translocon formed by a heterotrimeric ubiquitin ligase complex
Dr. Peiqiang Feng, Rapoport group, Harvard Medical School/HHMI, USA
June 2022
Zebrafish peroxisomes
Dr. Quentin Raas, Bonkowsky group, University of Utah, USA
April 2022
Gene Therapy for Zellweger Spectrum Disorder
Dr. Catherine Argyriou, Braverman group, McGill University, Canada
February 2022​
Peroxisomal disorders
Dr. Femke Klouwer, AMC, Amsterdam
December 2021
Fly peroxisomes
Dr. Francesca Di Cara, Dalhousie University, Canada
September 2021
Peroxisome engineering
Dr. Ka-Hei Sui, Dueber group, Berkeley, USA
July 2021
Peroxisomes and parasites
Dr. Vishal Kalel, Erdmann group, Bochum, Germany
May 2021
Peroxisomes and viruses
Dr. Daniela Ribeiro, University of Aveiro, Portugal
March 2021
Plant peroxisomes
Dr. Zachary Wright, Bartel group, Rice University, USA
January 2021
Peroxisome contact sites
Dr. Joseph Costello, University of Exeter, UK
November 2020
Protein targeting to the peroxisome matrix
Dr. Jérôme Bürgi, Wilmanns group, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Germany
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December 2022
Family, Research, and HOPE - The mission of The Global Foundation for Peroxisomal Disorders
Melissa Bryce, Executive Director, The Global Foundation for Peroxisomal Disorders
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February 2023
Peroxisome stress responses in c.elegans
Dr. Tomer Shpilka, Haynes group, UMass Chan Medical School. USA
April 2023
Upregulated pexophagy limits the degradative capacity of selective autophagy
Kyla Germain, Kim group, University of Toronto & The Hospital for Sick Children
June 2023
Peroxisome dynamics in health and disease
Dr. Ruth Carmichael, Schrader group, University of Exeter