^{Forensic Psychology & Criminology}

Biography

Biography: Irina I. Suvorova

Abstract

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) possess the remarkable ability of continuous replication and have the capacity to generate differentiated cells comprising all three embryonic germ layers. Under favorable culture conditions ESCs could be successfully maintained in a proliferative and pluripotent state that creates the possibility of their therapeutic application in regenerative medicine. However, ESCs become heterogeneous after long-term passaging in vitro as evidenced by morphological changes, reduced self-renewal and spontaneous differentiation. Hence, the maintenance of genetically stable pluripotent stem cells after long-term in vitro culture is one of the most important tasks in the field of cell therapy. Autophagy, a major intracellular degradation pathway essential for cellular and energy homeostasis, functioning in the clearance of misfolded proteins and damaged organelles, is conserved from yeast to mammals. Over the last decade, autophagy has thus become an important biological process to study owing to its implications in various human physiological and pathological conditions, including development, immunity, cancer, neurodegeneration and longevity. It can be assumed that spontaneously arising differentiated ESCs in vitro as well as ESCs carrying mutations in vitro originate from the cells with deregulated autophagy. Therefore, in this project is predicted that autophagy would be crucial for the quality control mechanisms and maintenance of cellular homeostasis in ESCs.