bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/301713; this version posted April 17, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. 1 2 3 Direct Small Molecule Activation of Mitofusins 4 5 Emmanouil Zacharioudakis1, Nikolaos Biris1, Thomas P. Garner1, Yun Chen2, Ryan, Pekson2, 6 Rimpy Dhingra3, Gaetano Santulli4, Lorrie A. Kirshenbaum3, Richard N. Kitsis5*, Evripidis 7 Gavathiotis6* 8 9 1Department of Biochemistry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461 USA 10 2Department of Medicine and Wilf Family Cardiovascular Research Institute, Albert Einstein 11 College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461 USA 12 3Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology and Department of Pharmacology and 13 Therapeutics, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of 14 Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada and Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, St. Boniface 15 Research Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2H2A6 Canada 16 4Department of Medicine, Wilf Family Cardiovascular Research Institute, and Einstein-Mount 17 Sinai Diabetes Research Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461 USA 18 5Department of Medicine, Department of Cell Biology, Wilf Family Cardiovascular Research 19 Institute, Albert Einstein Cancer Center, and Einstein-Mount Sinai Diabetes Research Center, 20 Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461 USA 21 6Department of Biochemistry, Department of Medicine, Wilf Family Cardiovascular Research 22 Institute, and Albert Einstein Cancer Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 23 10461 USA 24 25 *To whom correspondence should be addressed: 26 Evripidis Gavathiotis, Ph.D. 27 Albert Einstein College of Medicine 28 Forchheimer G46 29 1300 Morris Park Avenue 30 Bronx, NY 10461 USA 31 Tel: 718 430 3725 32 Email:
[email protected] 33 34 Richard N.