How phospholipids enter mitochondria - a problem of intracellular lipid transport

Schematic showing phospholipid transport from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to all bilayer leaflets of the mitochondrial double membrane. Non-vesicular mechanisms deliver ER-synthesized phospholipids to the cytoplasmic face of the outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM). The lipids are scrambled across the OMM by a lipid transporter (scramblase) before moving through the intermembrane space (IMS) and across the inner mitochondrial membrane (IMM).

The Menon Lab is in the Department of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medical College. We study how lipids are trafficked inside cells, across and between membrane bilayers. This a basic problem in molecular cell biology, important for understanding the biogenesis of cell membranes and the homeostatic control of their lipid content. We are also interested in the flip-flop of glycolipids across the endoplasmic reticulum membrane, which is necessary for protein N-glycosylation and essential for life.

Our approaches include biochemistry, biophysics, chemical biology, membrane protein reconstitution, quantitative proteomics, single molecule fluorescence, structural biology, and yeast genetics.