Sergey Troyanovsky
Northwestern University, IL·Biology
Cells in tissues such as skin and the gut lining stick together through junctions, which are protein structures that bind neighboring cells. These junctions are arranged differently on different sides of the cell.
- Fields
Biology
Biochemistry
- Topics
cell adhesion
cadherins
cadherin clustering
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Determine how the basolateral polarity protein Scrib regulates the phosphatase PP1 and identify the effectors of this pathway in maintaining the identity of the epithelial cell's lower membrane.
- Define how plakophilin 3 (Pkp3) regulates desmosomal cadherins and how the polarity protein Par3 controls the release of Pkp3 from its dormant pool to assemble desmosomes.
- Determine how Pkp4 controls classic cadherin adhesion to assemble a distinct subset of adherens junctions.
- Uncover the roles of the signaling protein Erbin and the adaptor PLEKHA5 in forming cadherin clusters at adherens junctions.
- Determine how cadherin binding outside the cell is coupled to α-catenin binding actin filaments, and how cadherin clustering contributes to tissue morphogenesis.
More about the research
Their placement and stickiness shape how tissues form and how well they act as barriers. Two projects ask how adhesion proteins called cadherins organize these junctions, and how cell polarity proteins, which define a cell's top and bottom, control where the junctions form.
Why it matters
Cell-cell adhesion controls how tissues form and how well epithelial barriers work. Knowing how junctions are built and positioned could guide the development of synthetic reagents that tune adhesion and barrier properties of epithelial tissues, with possible medical uses.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Alexa Mattheyses
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Biophysics
Define what drives changes in the architecture of desmoplakin, the plaque protein that links desmosomes to the keratin intermediate filament cytoskeleton, and test whether that architecture is what confers mechanical integrity, using super-resolution fluorescence microscopy.
Kenneth Irvine
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Biology
Determine how phase-separated condensates of Warts with Jub, and Jub-promoted phosphorylation of the Warts N-terminus, inhibit this Hippo pathway kinase in Drosophila tissues.
Barry M. Gumbiner
University of Virginia, VA·Biology
Determine whether surface regulation of VE-cadherin, the adhesion protein linking endothelial cells, is a shared mechanism for responses to histamine, angiopoietins, Tie2 and S1P, using endothelial cells from different microvascular beds.
The school
Northwestern University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 536 research doctorates a year.
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