Bone Abstracts

Mutations in PLEKHM1 cause bone disease in humans and animals. Truncations causedeficient bone resorption by osteoclasts leading to osteopetrosis. A gain-of-function point mutation causes increased resorption leading to osteopenia. We and others have shown that PLEKHM1, a multi-modular protein, interacts with the small GTPase rab7 and is involved in vesicle trafficking, secretion, and membrane biogenesis. To investigate other interactions of PLEKHM1 we performed tandem affinit...

The autophagy protein LC3 is necessary for bone resorption by osteoclasts, although it has been suggested that this may be through a novel, autophagy-independent process, by promoting lysosomal fusion at the ruffled border (RB). This process would be analogous to LC3-associated phagocytosis (LAP), in which LC3 is acquired by phagosomes through an autophagy-independent process, and controls phagosome maturation by promoting fusion with lysosomes. We have investigated this possi...