Have a listen to a podcast that David was a guest on where he discusses the recent work from the lab on mitochondrial quality control and the potential implications in Parkinson’s Disease.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1uKCmCLheGV40Yg94oHSw3?si=gMxIPx-kT7OqsrRaJmQzRg

Check out our latest publication in The EMBO Journal, which describes new mechanisms of mitochondrial quality control.

Ryan, T. A., Phillips, E.O., Collier, C.L., Robinson, A.J.B., Routledge, D., Wood, R.E., Assar, A.A., and Tumbarello, D. A. (2020) “Tollip coordinates Parkin-dependent mitochondrial derived vesicle trafficking.” EMBO J Apr 20:e102539.

Check out our new comprehensive Review discussing Optineurin’s role as a coordinator of membrane-associated cargo trafficking and autophagy, published in Frontiers in Immunology.

Ryan, T. A. & Tumbarello, D. A. (2018). “Optineurin: a coordinator of membrane-associated cargo trafficking and autophagy. ” Frontiers in Immunology, 9, 1024.

We welcome Dr Tom Ryan to the lab as a Research Fellow funded by the Wellcome Trust.  He has come from the University of Leeds where he completed his PhD with Dr Ewan Morrison and will now be interrogating mechanisms of mitophagy here in Southampton.

This work, completed while I was a postdoc with Cancer Research UK, is now published in PLOS One.  This is a really nice study, where we identify an interaction between the extracellular matrix proteins SPARC and TGFBI, as well as show that SPARC regulates the fibrillar deposition of TGFBI within the extracellular space.  We utilised a novel cell based assay to extract mesothelial derived matrices to show how TGFBI was organised within the extracellular matrix, following perturbation of SPARC expression, using confocal microscopy as well as identified, through biochemical techniques, a direct interaction between TGFBI and SPARC. In addition, we show that SPARC expression by mesothelial cells can influence ovarian cancer cell migration and response to chemotherapeutic agents, specifically the microtubule stabilising drug Paclitaxel. This publication gives us valuable new information as to how extracellular matrix proteins are deposited and organised within the extracellular space and highlights the impact of the extracellular environment on cancer cell behaviour with a potential insight into drug resistance mechanisms.

Tumbarello DA, Andrews MR, Brenton JD (2016) SPARC Regulates Transforming Growth Factor Beta Induced (TGFBI) Extracellular Matrix Deposition and Paclitaxel Response in Ovarian Cancer Cells. PLoS ONE 11(9): e0162698. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0162698

Welcome to the Tumbarello lab website at the University of Southampton. We are a cell biology lab interested in understanding fundamental pathways that are associated with disease.  We hope you follow our website and keep track of all the latest from our lab.