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

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 Nature Immunology. 25(5):778-789. 38589619

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 bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2024.05.10.593451. 38798678

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 bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2024.03.28.587096. 38585887

Lab News

Award Update!

January, 2022

Congratulations to Ajit for receiving one of two UCLA DGSOM Junior Faculty Awards from the W. M. Keck Foundation.

Congratulations to Anthony, Nataly, Aracely, and Krista on their latest publications!

October, 2021

Sending big congrats to our lab members on their recent publications! Anthony, Nataly and Aracely are all authors of “A Single LC-MS/MS Analysis to Quantify CoA Biosynthetic Intermediates and Short-Chain Acyl CoAs” published in Metabolites. Krista and Mary (UCLA Pharmacology rotation student) authored “Measuring CPT-1-mediated respiration in permeabilized cells and isolated mitochondria” published in STAR Protocols.

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