UCLA Mitochondrial Metabolism and Bioenergetics Laboratory

Welcome to the Mitochondrial Metabolism and Bioenergetics Laboratory! Our group studies how energy metabolism and metabolic flexibility – the ability to switch between sugar, amino acid, and fatty acid oxidation in response to biological cues – can control cell function and fate. Ultimately, we aim to discover novel regulatory points of metabolism and develop mitochondrial proteins and pathways as therapeutic drug targets.

Research

Mitochondrial remodeling during macrophage activation

How metabolic flexibility can control cell physiology

Assay development and experimental guides

Recent Publications

Ball AB, Jones AE, Nguyễn KB, Rios A, Marx N, Hsieh WY, Yang K, Desousa BR, Kim KKO, Veliova M, Del Mundo ZM, Shirihai OS, Benincá C, Stiles L, Bensinger SJ, Divakaruni AS. (2024) Pro-inflammatory macrophage activation does not require inhibition of mitochondrial respiration (2024) bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2024.05.10.593451. 38798678

Li JH, Zhou A, Lee CD, Shah SN, Ji JH, Senthilkumar V, Padilla ET, Ball AB, Feng Q, Bustillos GC, Riggan L, Greige A, Divakaruni AS, Annese F, Cooley Coleman JA, Skinner SA, Cowan CW, O'Sullivan TE (2024) MEF2C regulates NK cell effector functions through control of lipid metabolism (2024)Nature Immunology. 25(5):778-789. 38589619

Jones AE, Rios A, Ibrahimovic N, Chavez C, Bayley NA, Ball AB, Hsieh WY, Sammarco A, Bianchi AR, Cortez AA, Graeber TG, Hoffmann A, Bensinger SJ, Divakaruni AS. (2024) The metabolic cofactor Coenzyme A enhances alternative macrophage activation via MyD88-linked signaling (2024) bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2024.03.28.587096. 38585887

Lab News

Congratulations to Amy!

January, 2023

Congratulations to Amy for becoming a UCLA McNair Research Scholar. Good luck as you start your independent research project in the lab!

Andréa passes her Advancement to Candidacy Exam!

November, 2022

Congratulations to Andréa on passing her qualifying exams and officially becoming a Ph.D. candidate! We are very proud and look forward to seeing all she will accomplish in the coming years.

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