Kristen Curran
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, WI·Biology
In adults, the circadian clock lines up the body's physiology and behavior with the time of day. When that coordination breaks down, as with shift work or jet lag, health can suffer.
- Fields
Biology
Genetics
Biochemistry
- Topics
circadian clock
Bmal1
Nr1d1
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Define changes in gene expression and metabolism during dorsal mesoderm specification by comparing wild-type and bmal1 knockout Xenopus animal caps induced with activin, using RNA-seq plus measurements of oxygen consumption and NAD+/NADH ratios.
- Identify targets of Nr1d1 that drive the metabolic shift by treating animal caps with SR8278, a drug that blocks Nr1d1/2, and profiling gene expression and NAD(P)+/NAD(P)H levels.
- Test whether NAD+ and sirtuins (NAD+-dependent enzymes) regulate the response to TGF-beta signaling by treating activin-induced animal caps with suramin (a sirtuin inhibitor) or melatonin (a sirtuin activator) at different stages.
- Investigate whether sirtuins feed back on Bmal1 protein by removing acetyl tags (deacetylation) during dorsal mesoderm specification.
More about the research
Early embryos are not thought to keep time, yet the PI found that two clock components, Bmal1 and Nr1d1, change gene expression and metabolism in early frog embryos and affect skeletal muscle formation. This raises the question of how clock genes take part in a cell's earliest decisions about what it will become.
Why it matters
This is basic developmental biology. It adds understanding of how circadian clock components tie metabolism to the earliest decisions that lead to skeletal muscle. Knowing how clock genes and NAD+ influence cell fate before the clock keeps time could eventually inform how circadian disruption affects development and health.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Michael D Sheets
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Biology
Define how Bicaudal-C (Bicc1), an RNA-binding protein, selects its target mRNAs, testing whether multiple independent RNA-binding surfaces in its binding domain determine specificity, using RNA-protein biochemistry and genome-wide approaches.
Amy Sater
University of Houston, TX·Biology
Test how retinoic acid, a vitamin A-derived signal that patterns the embryo from head to tail, triggers the start of glial cell formation in the front region of the developing spinal cord of Xenopus laevis embryos.
Richard Harland
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Biology
Determine how members of the Plekhg family of Rho GTP exchange factors, proteins that switch on cell-shape signals, control specific cell behaviors during gastrulation and neurulation in Xenopus embryos, using CRISPR knockdown.
The school
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater: 1 labs on PI Pages.
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