Thierry Galli

Thierry Galli, Ph.D. Membrane Traffic in Healthy & Diseased Brain Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris (IPNP), INSERM/Univ Paris Cité UMR1266 Paris, France, thierry.galli@inserm.fr Thierry Galli is a distinguished scientist and former student of the École Normale Supérieure of Saint-Cloud/Lyon. He earned his BSc in Biochemistry from the University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, in 1988 and completed his PhD under Prof. Jacques Glowinski at the Collège de France and the University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, in 1992. Following his PhD, he conducted postdoctoral research in Prof. Pietro De Camilli's laboratory at Yale University School of Medicine, where he investigated the molecular mechanisms of regulated and constitutive exocytosis. In 1995, Thierry Galli secured his first research appointment at the French National Institute of Health (INSERM) and the Curie Institute in the laboratory of Prof. Daniel Louvard. By 2001, he was appointed as Research Director at the Fer-à-Moulin Institute, Paris. In 2005, he became a Group Leader at the Jacques Monod Institute, Paris. Since 2018, he has led a team at the Institute of Psychiatry & Neurosciences of Paris, where he serves as the director. Galli's research has been pivotal in understanding the role of SNARE proteins in neuronal cell differentiation. He has particularly emphasized the tetanus neurotoxin-sensitive routes mediated by cellubrevin/VAMP3 and synaptobrevin/VAMP1,2, as well as the tetanus neurotoxin-insensitive routes mediated by TI-VAMP/VAMP7 and the ER-plasma membrane contact sites regulated by Sec22b. His groundbreaking work on the VAMP7-mediated secretory pathway has shed light on its critical functions in the brain and immune system. Recently, he proposed a novel mechanism of membrane expansion in neurite growth based on non-vesicular lipid transport at ER-plasma membrane contact sites and late endosomal autophagy-dependent secretion, with significant implications for Parkinson’s disease. Thierry Galli has held several prestigious editorial positions, including Editor-in-Chief of Biology of the Cell (2009-2016), member of the Faculty of 1000 (2011-2023), and Editorial Board member of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (2012-2020), Contact (2018-), and Traffic (2021-). He served as President of the Society for Biology of the Cell – France (SBCF) from 2012 to 2013 and is currently the Director of the thematic institute of Cell Biology, Development, and Evolution. Additionally, he is part of the directorship of the French National Institute of Health and was appointed head of the Psychiatry and Neuroscience Center in 2015, and later the Institute of Psychiatry & Neurosciences of Paris in 2019. Thierry Galli's contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Grand Prix à orientation fondamentale Robert Debré for medical research in 2011, the Rachel, Ajzen et Léon IAGOLNITZER Prize of Fondation Pour la Recherche Médicale in 2015, the Coup d'Elan Prize of the Bettencourt-Schueller Foundation in 2016, and the Mariano Gago Prize with Nuno Raimundo in 2023.   SELECTION OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS OF A TOTAL OF >150 SINCE 1990

1.    Filippini F*, Nola S*, Zahraoui A, Roger K, Esmaili M, Sun J, Wojnacki J, Vlieghe A, Bun P, Blanchon S, Rain J-C, Taymans J-M, Chartier-Harlin M-C, Chiara G, Galli T. Secretion of VGF relies on the interplay between LRRK2 and post-Golgi v-SNAREs. Cell Rep. 2023 Mar 28;42(3):112221. PMID: 36905628

We report that the Parkinson’s disease associated gene product LRRK2 interacts with VAMP4 and VAMP7 and regulates the unconventional secretion of the pro-peptide of VGF, a Parkinson’s disease biomarker.

2.    Ferreras S, Singh NP, Leborgne R, Bun P, Binz T, Parton RG, Verbavatz J-M, Vannier C, Galli T. A synthetic organelle approach to probe SNARE-mediated membrane fusion in a bacterial host. J Biol Chem. 2023 Feb 2;102974. PMID: 36738791

We reconstituted intracellular membrane fusion in bacteria by co-expressing caveolin which induces cisternae and synaptic SNAREs.

3.    Wojnacki J, Nola S, Bun P, Cholley B, Filippini F, Pressé MT, Lipecka J, Man Lam S, N’guyen J, Simon A, Ouslimani A, Shui G, Fader CM, Colombo MI, Guerrera IC, Galli T. Role of VAMP7-Dependent Secretion of Reticulon 3 in Neurite Growth. Cell Rep. 2020 Dec 22;33(12):108536. PMID: 33357422

We show that VAMP7 mediates unconventional secretion of endoplasmic reticulum elements such as RTN3, which is involved in axonal growth and regeneration, in a mechanism amplified when degradative autophagy is impaired in ATG5 KO.

4.    Gallo A, Danglot L, Giordano F, Hewlett B, Binz T, Vannier C, Galli T. Role of the Sec22b-E-Syt complex in neurite growth and ramification. J Cell Sci. 2020 Sep 15;133(18). PMID: 32843578

We report the role of the lipid transfer protein E-Syt at membrane contact sites generated by the SNAREs Sec22b and Syntaxin 1 in neurite growth and ramification.

5.    Wang G, Nola S, Bovio S, Bun P, Coppey-Moisan M, Lafont F, Galli T. Biomechanical Control of Lysosomal Secretion Via the VAMP7 Hub: A Tug-of-War between VARP and LRRK1. iScience. 2018 Jun 29;4:127–143. PMCID: PMC6147023

We show the interaction of LRRK1, a kinase closely related to LRRK2, with VAMP7 and its role in controlling lysosomal secretion in a tug-of-war mechanism with the Rab21 guanine nucleotide exchange factor Varp.

7.    Kuster A, Nola S, Dingli F, Vacca B, Gauchy C, Beaujouan J-C, Nunez M, Moncion T, Loew D, Formstecher E, Galli T*, Proux-Gillardeaux V*. The Q-soluble N-Ethylmaleimide-sensitive Factor Attachment Protein Receptor (Q-SNARE) SNAP-47 Regulates Trafficking of Selected Vesicle-associated Membrane Proteins (VAMPs). J Biol Chem. 2015 Nov 20;290(47):28056–28069. PMCID: PMC4653666

Here we showed that the largely underexplored SNARE SNAP-47 interacts with several vesicular SNAREs and regulate their function, particularly VAMP7’s mediated secretion.

8.    Petkovic M, Jemaiel A, Daste F, Specht CG, Izeddin I, Vorkel D, Verbavatz J-M, Darzacq X, Triller A, Pfenninger KH, Tareste D, Jackson CL, Galli T. The SNARE Sec22b has a non-fusogenic function in plasma membrane expansion. Nat Cell Biol. 2014 May;16(5):434–444. PMID: 24705552

We report that Sec22b and Syntaxin 1 form a non fusogenic SNARE complex mediating ER-plasma membrane neuronal contact sites in plasma membrane growth.

9.   Gallo A, Vannier C, Galli T. Endoplasmic Reticulum-Plasma Membrane Associations:Structures and Functions. Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol. 2016 Oct 6;32:279–301. PMID: 27298092

This review article in the prestigious Annual Reviews allowed us to report and discuss recent findings on the molecular and cellular mechanisms in the emerging field of membrane contact sites and their importance in neuronal development and physiology. https://research.com/u/thierry-galli Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of nerve cell development; molecular mechanisms of synaptic transmitter release; SNARE proteins; molecular and cellular basis of neuropsychiatric diseases, secretory mechanisms in cancer.