Rising Star: Lysosomes as Dead Cell Buriers and Key Guardians of Organismal Homeostasis

Xiaochen Wang studied plant biology as a Ph.D. student at Peking University, China, and worked on programmed cell death as a post-doctoral fellow at University of Colorado at Boulder. Wang set up her own research group to initially investigate the clearance of apoptotic cells by lysosomes and later redirected her research to decipher lysosome dynamics and functions in a multicellular organism. Lysosomes are major degradative organelles and signaling centers in the cell that play important roles in a wide variety of processes to maintain cell and tissue homeostasis. Lysosome dysfunction is associated with metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and age-related pathologies. As the burier of dead cells, lysosomes degrade apoptotic cells delivered via phagocytosis to enable a safe funeral without stimulating inflammatory responses. The Wang lab has systematically dissected the regulatory pathways by which apoptotic cells are recognized and engulfed by phagocytes, and delivered to and digested by lysosomes. Intrigued by the highly changeable morphology and versatile functions of lysosomes, Wang and colleagues developed C. elegans as a multicellular model to investigate how lysosome dynamics and functions are regulated to maintain animal development and longevity.