WHU Professor’s Findings on the List of Ten Great Achievements in Life Science

On January 24^th, 2016, China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) released the top ten great achievements that China had made in the field of Life Science in 2015. Among the achievements was the research on new mechanisms for intracellular cholesterol transport led by Professor Song Baoliang, Dean of the College of Life Sciences and his team at WHU.

The metabolic disorder of cholesterol—an essential lipid for cells, has been considered as a cause of atherosclerosis and neurological lesions. However, the mechanism underlying intracellular cholesterol transport had remained largely unknown. During their research, Song’s team discovered the dynamic membrane contacts between peroxisome and lysosome, which are mediated by lysosomal Synaptotagmin VII binding to the lipid PI (4,5) P₂ on the peroxisomal membrane. Through these contacts, cholesterol is transported from lysosome to peroxisome, and the gene mutation of peroxisome will lead to neurological functional disturbance.

Thanks to the findings of Song’s team, the unexpected role of cholesterol accumulation in causing peroxisomal membrane disorder was revealed for the first time. This research not only found the new mechanism of intracellular cholesterol transport, suggesting the new function of peroxisomal membrane, but more importantly, it developed new ideas for the treatment of diseases relating to cholesterol metabolic disorder. The findings of Song’s team have been published in Cell in April, 2015, together with its review.