Dr. Charareh Pourzand, University of Bath, The United Kingdom, will join Skin Ageing & Challenges 2022 to give a presentation entitled “ Connecting the Intracellular Labile Ironome to Susceptibility of Skin Cells to Sunlight: a Powerful Approach Towards Personalised Sun Protection”.

The intracellular iron homeostasis and body iron balance are tightly regulated to minimise the presence of potentially harmful labile iron (LI). However, under conditions of oxidative stress and certain pathologies, iron homeostasis is severely disturbed. This disturbance manifests itself in many ways, one of which is via an increase in the intracellular level of potentially harmful LI, as exemplified by the increase in cytosolic LI in skin cells caused by solar UVA radiation.

The UVA-induced increase in LI plays a key role in the increased susceptibility of skin cells to oxidative membrane damage and necrotic cell death. Our studies demonstrate that in skin cells, in addition to cytosolic LI, the presence of high levels of LI in mitochondria and lysosomes makes these organelles highly vulnerable to oxidative damage, notably following exposure to oxidising UVA radiation that can be prevented by organelle-permeable/-targeted iron chelators pre-treatment.

Dr. Pourzand and her team have developed a series of highly specific fluorescent iron sensors to sensitively evaluate the level of intracellular cytosolic, mitochondrial, and lysosomal LI and obtain the intracellular ‘labile ironome profile’ of the skin cells. The latter provides a powerful means to evaluate the extent of susceptibility of individuals’ skin to photoaging and photodamage caused by sunlight.

Skin Ageing & Challenges 2022
November 17-18, 2022 – Lisbon, Portugal
www.skin-challenges.com