Costello Lab

We are a group of molecular cell biologists interested in membrane contact sites between organelles in mammalian cells. Our focus is on how physical connections between peroxisomes, the ER and mitochondria control the lives of these organelles and how defects in these connections contribute to disease. Current projects are investigating how the modification of tether proteins contributes to regulation of membrane contacts and we are also characterising novel, disease related molecules localised to these sites.

The Team

Dr Chloe Bolton

Fotios Gkoutzourelas

Dr Joe Costello

Dr Jacob Day

Dr Smija Kurian

Recent updates:

December 2023 – UK Membrane trafficking 2023 meeting

In December we took a long day trip from Exeter to the excellent UK membrane trafficking meeting at UCL. It was a very useful and interesting meeting with some excellent talks. We made some nice connections and discovered that AlphaFold2 is the current on-trend tool which was featured in almost every talk. We hope to return next year and present some of our latest work!

October 2023 – Chloe and Smija return from leave and Fotios and Jacob join/re-join the team!

After a few quiet months the lab is suddenly busy again as Chloe and Smija come back from leave, Fotios re-joins as a Masters student and Jacob joins us via a collaboration with the Crosby/Baple group as a MRC GW4 CAT PhD student.

August 2023 – Lab climbing trip to Dartmoor

We took advantage of some excellent weather and had an afternoon trip to Dartmoor to introduce Robyn to the delights of bouldering at Bonehill Rocks. Be great to make this a regular lab event in the future.

Recent publications:

Costello JL, Koster J, Silva BSC, Worthy HL, Schrader TA, Hacker C, Passmore J, Kuypers FA, Waterham HR, Schrader M. Differential roles for ACBD4 and ACBD5 in peroxisome-ER interactions and lipid metabolism. J Biol Chem. 2023 Aug;299(8):105013. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2023.105013. Epub 2023 Jul 4. PMID: 37414147; PMCID: PMC10410513.

Pedrosa AG, Reglinski K, Lismont C, Kors S, Costello J, Rodrigues TA, Marques M, Linka N, Argyriou C, Weinhofer I, Kocherlakota S, Riccio V, Ferreira V, Di Cara F, Ferreira AR, Francisco T, Azevedo JE, Ribeiro D. Peroxisomes : novel findings and future directions. Histochem Cell Biol. 2023 May;159(5):379-387. doi: 10.1007/s00418-023-02201-9. Epub 2023 May 10. PMID: 37160800; PMCID: PMC10170047.

Schrader TA, Carmichael RE, Islinger M, Costello JL, Hacker C, Bonekamp NA, Weishaupt JH, Andersen PM, Schrader M. PEX11β and FIS1 cooperate in peroxisome division independently of mitochondrial fission factor. J Cell Sci. 2022 Jul 1;135(13):jcs259924. doi: 10.1242/jcs.259924. Epub 2022 Jul 8. PMID: 35678336; PMCID: PMC9377713.

Kors S, Schrader M, Costello JL. Multiple Ways to Keep FFAT Under Control! Contact (Thousand Oaks). 2022 Jan 1;5:1-4. doi: 10.1177/25152564221101219. Epub 2022 May 11. PMID: 35611050; PMCID: PMC7612758.

Kors S, Costello JL, Schrader M. VAP Proteins – From Organelle Tethers to Pathogenic Host Interactors and Their Role in Neuronal Disease. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022 Jun 8;10:895856. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.895856. PMID: 35756994; PMCID: PMC9213790.

Kors S, Hacker C, Bolton C, Maier R, Reimann L, Kitchener EJA, Warscheid B, Costello JL, Schrader M. Regulating peroxisome-ER contacts via the ACBD5-VAPB tether by FFAT motif phosphorylation and GSK3β. J Cell Biol. 2022 Mar 7;221(3):e202003143. doi: 10.1083/jcb.202003143. Epub 2022 Jan 12. PMID: 35019937; PMCID: PMC8759595.

Kors S, Kurian SM, Costello JL, Schrader M. Controlling contacts-Molecular mechanisms to regulate organelle membrane tethering. Bioessays. 2022 Nov;44(11):e2200151. doi: 10.1002/bies.202200151. Epub 2022 Sep 30. PMID: 36180400.

Islinger M, Costello JL, Kors S, Soupene E, Levine TP, Kuypers FA, Schrader M. The diversity of ACBD proteins – From lipid binding to protein modulators and organelle tethers. Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Res. 2020 May;1867(5):118675. doi: 10.1016/j.bbamcr.2020.118675. Epub 2020 Feb 8. PMID: 32044385; PMCID: PMC7057175.

Costello JL, Castro IG, Hacker C, Schrader TA, Metz J, Zeuschner D, Azadi AS, Godinho LF, Costina V, Findeisen P, Manner A, Islinger M, Schrader M. ACBD5 and VAPB mediate membrane associations between peroxisomes and the ER. J Cell Biol. 2017 Feb;216(2):331-342. doi: 10.1083/jcb.201607055. Epub 2017 Jan 20. PMID: 28108524; PMCID: PMC5294785.