Alyssa Johnson
Associate Professor
Office: 218 LSB
Lab: 265/277/279/279A/383 LSB
Phone: 225-578-7228
Email: johnsona@lsu.edu
Area of Interest
My lab is exploring links between the genetic and molecular causes of age-related degenerative diseases, such as ALS, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. A common hallmark of almost all degenerative diseases is the progressive accumulation of protein aggregates. Autophagy-lysosome mediated degradation is the major pathway that clears aggregates from the cytoplasm and autophagy defects are associated with many degenerative diseases. Using CRISPR gene editing techniques, we are introducing disease-causing mutations into the endogenous fruit fly genome and using a combination of genetic, biochemical and microscopy methods to study how the autophagy-lysosome pathway is affected in various cell types (e.g. neurons, glia and muscles) and how these molecular defects drive progressive degenerative phenotypes in the whole organism.
Selected Publications
Mercola BM, Villalobos TV, Wood JE, Basu A, and Johnson AE. 2025. Increased expression of the small lysosomal gene SVIP in the Drosophila gut suppresses pathophysiological features associated with a high-fat diet. Biology Open 14, bio061601. doi:10.1242/bio.061601.
Gill JP, DeLeo KR, Bohnert KA, and Johnson AE. 2024. . microPublication Biology. DOI: 10.17912/micropub.biology.001379.
Ricaurte-Perez C, Gill JP, Wall PK, Dubuisson O, DeLeo KR, Bohnert KA, and Johnson AE. 2024. . (in revision, Nature Communications).
Research Square [preprint]:
Villalobos TV#, Ghosh B#, DeLeo KR#, Alam S#, Ricaurte-Perez C, Wang A, Mercola BM, Butsch TJ, Ramos CD, Das S, Eymard ED, Bohnert KA* and Johnson AE*. 2023. Nature Aging 3: 1091–1106. #equal contributions, *corresponding authors
Link to "News and Views" perspective article:
Pandey P, Wall PK, Lopez SR, Dubuisson OS, Zunica ERM, Dantas WS, Kirwan JP, Axelrod CL, and Johnson AE. . BioRxiv [preprint]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.04.25.538137
Ramos CD, Bohnert KA* and Johnson AE*. 2022.. J Exp Biol 225 (12): jeb244282. *corresponding authors
Selected as an "inside JEB" featured article: Knight K. 2022. J Exp Biol 225 (12): jeb244612.
Bohnert KA* and Johnson AE*. 2022. . Front Cell Dev Biol (review) 10:863922. *corresponding authors.
Wall JM#, Basu A#, Zunica ERM, Dubuisson OS, Pergola K, Broussard JP, Kirwan JP, Axelrod CL and Johnson AE. 2021. Disease Models and Mechanisms 14 (7): dmm048603. #equal contributions
Johnson AE, Orr BO, Fetter RD, Moughamian AJ, Primeaux LA, Geier EG, Yokoyama JS, Miller BL & Davis GW. 2021. Nature Communications 12, 513.