First Place Winner: Understanding Cholesterol Imbalance

By Maciej Stawikowski, Ph.D., Research Professor, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science

Cholesterol is structurally essential for all eukaryotic cell membranes. Functionally, cholesterol has been indicated in a variety of disorders beyond cardiovascular diseases. Cholesterol and other lipids control many aspects that are relevant for Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis. Maciej Stawikowski, Ph.D., department of chemistry, and Qiang Zhang, Ph.D., Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, both also members of FAU’s Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute, teamed up to study novel fluorescent cholesterol probes that enable visualization of cholesterol and its trafficking in the live cells. This picture shows mouse brain cells (astrocytes) five days after short (1 hour) incubation with novel cholesterol probe made in the Stawikowski’s Laboratory. Cells were stained with a fluorescent mitochondrial marker (cyan) and a novel cholesterol probe (yellow). The yellow puncta contain cholesterol probe localized in yet to be identified vesicles, which move within the cell. We believe that the intracellular cholesterol imbalance may hold the key to understanding Alzheimer’s as well as other neurodegenerative diseases.