Xiaofang Chen

Mitophagy is a selective form of macroautophagy in which dysfunctional and damaged mitochondria can be efficiently degraded, removed and recycled through autophagy. Selective removal of damaged or fragmented mitochondria is critical to the functional integrity of the entire mitochondrial network and cells. In past decades, numerous studies have shown that mitophagy is involved in various diseases; however, since the dual role of mitophagy in tumour development, mitophagy role in tumour is controversial, and further elucidation is needed. That is, although mitophagy has been demonstrated to contribute to carcinogenesis, cell migration, ferroptosis inhibition, cancer stemness maintenance, tumour immune escape, drug resistance, etc. during cancer progression, many research also shows that to promote cancer cell death, mitophagy can be induced physiologically or pharmacologically to maintain normal cellular metabolism and prevent cell stress responses and genome damage by diminishing mitochondrial damage, thus suppressing tumour development accompanying these changes. Signalling pathway-specific molecular mechanisms are currently of great biological significance in the identification of potential therapeutic targets. Here, we review recent progress of molecular pathways mediating mitophagy including both canonical pathways (Parkin/PINK1- and FUNDC1-mediated mitophagy) and noncanonical pathways (FKBP8-, Nrf2-, and DRP1-mediated mitophagy); and the regulation of these pathways, and abovementioned pro-cancer and pro-death roles of mitophagy. Finally, we summarise the role of mitophagy in cancer therapy. Mitophagy can potentially be acted as the target for cancer therapy by promotion or inhibition.

Intracellular survival of pathogenic bacteria leads to high chances of bacterial persistence and relapse in the bacteria-infected host. However, many antibiotics fail to clear the intracellular bacteria due to their low internalization by cells. In order to increase delivery of antibiotics in cells and eliminate intracellular bacteria, we developed antibiotic-derived lipid nanoparticles. First, we synthesized antibiotic-derived lipid conjugates using two widely used antibiotics including penicillin G (PenG) and levofloxacin (Levo). Then, we formulated them into antibiotic-derived lipid nanoparticles and evaluated their antibacterial effects. We found that penicillin G derived phospholipid nanoparticles (PenG-PL NPs) were able to enhance cellular uptake of penicillin G as compared with free penicillin G and eliminate up to 99.9998% of ~10^8.5 intracellular methicillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) in infected A549 cells, a lung epithelial cell line. The PenG-PL NPs showed the potential for inhibiting intracellular S. aureus and are promising to be further studied for in vivo antibacterial applications.

Apolipoprotein A-I (Apo A-I) is the principal protein component of high density lipoprotein (HDL), which is generally considered as a potential therapeutic target against atherosclerosis. The understanding of the Apo A-I regulation mechanism has fuelled the development of novel HDL targeted therapeutic approaches. To identify novel agents that can upregulate Apo A-I expression, we performed a cell-based reporter assay to screen 25,600 small molecules. Based on the dataset obtained from screening, a series of novel analogs of substituted benzamides containing azaspiro rings were assessed for their ability to induce the transcription of the Apo A-I gene, and the structure-activity relationship (SAR) around these analogs was also proposed. The results indicated that the trifluoromethyl substituted benzamide containing an azaspiro ring is a promising backbone for designing Apo A-I transcriptional upregulator and could be viable leads for development of new drugs to prevent and treat atherosclerosis in the future.

Trichostatin A (TSA) and suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) were reported in our recent publication as novel human high density lipoprotein (HDL) receptor CD36 and Lysosomal integral membrane protein-II Analogous-1 (CLA-1) up-regulators. As part of a broader effort to more fully explore the structure-activity relationships (SAR) of CLA-1 up-regulators, we synthesized a series of hydroxamic acid derivatives and evaluated their CLA-1 up-regulating activities in HepG2 cells. Some compounds exhibited over 10-fold up-regulation of CLA-1 expression in HepG2 cells at 10 μg/mL concentration. The compound 1g showed the best potency, with a lower EC₅₀ than TSA (EC₅₀ = 0.32 μM versus 1.2 μM). These compounds provide early new CLA-1 up-regulators with potential for treating atherosclerosis.