Inositide Signaling in Pharmacology and Disease

Keystone Symposia, Silverthorne CO

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal requests support for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled Inositide Signaling in Pharmacology and Disease, organized by Marco Falasca, Nullin Divecha, John D. York and Pietro V. De Camilli, which will be held in Keystone, Colorado from February 13 - 18, 2011. Phosphoinositide and inositol phosphates interact with and modulate the recruitment and activation of key regulatory proteins and, in doing so, control diverse functions including cell growth and proliferation, apoptosis, cytoskeletal dynamics, insulin action, vesicle trafficking and nuclear function. Initially, inositide signaling was thought to be limited to the phospholipase C pathway;however, it is now clear that all seven phosphoinositides and more than 30 different inositol phosphates likely have specific and distinct signaling functions. Moreover, there is a growing list of proteins that are regulated by inositol signaling. This has raised the question as to how inositol signaling can control diverse processes and yet maintain signaling specificity. Controlling the levels of inositol signaling molecules and their subcellular compartmentalization is likely to be critical to the normal functioning of cells. This meeting will bring together scientists from different backgrounds to discuss how understanding inositol signaling may be used to target complex human diseases that manifest themselves when inositol signaling is deregulated. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Phosphoinositides are specialized lipid molecules implicated in cancer, metabolic syndromes and muscle and neuronal pathology. The Keystone Symposia meeting on Inositide Signaling in Pharmacology and Disease will bring together key researchers in different fields with the aim of identifying novel concepts in phosphoinositide signaling that might be exploitable as pharmacological therapeutics.