Barth Grant
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Biology
Cells constantly pull proteins and lipids in from their surface membrane and then send many of them back. This return trip, called endocytic recycling, controls what sits on the cell surface.
- Fields
Biology
Genetics
Biochemistry
- Topics
endocytic recycling
endocytosis
recycling endosomes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- Define how the Syndapin signaling hub on endosomes controls non-muscle myosin II and RhoA, a switch protein for actin and myosin, to drive fission of recycling tubules, using genetics in the C. elegans intestine.
- Determine the roles of specific non-muscle myosin II isoforms in endosome fission and extend the Syndapin pathway analysis into mammalian cells to test whether it is conserved.
- Test whether Syndapin-based RhoA regulation sends signals from endosomes to the nucleus that adjust endocytic recycling over the long term.
- Clarify how actin polymerization and actomyosin force create membrane tension that severs recycling tubules from sorting endosomes in intact polarized epithelial cells.
More about the research
Insulin uses it to move glucose transporters to the surface, and the process goes wrong in type 2 diabetes. The return trip depends on recycling endosomes, small membrane compartments that form when tubes of membrane are pinched off, or fissioned, from larger sorting endosomes. How this fission happens and how it is controlled remain poorly understood compared with other transport pathways.
Why it matters
Endocytic recycling is a key control point in insulin-triggered delivery of the glucose transporter Glut4 to the cell surface, a step that fails in type 2 diabetes. RME-8, which the team studies, has been linked to parkinsonism. A clearer picture of how recycling endosomes form could help researchers understand these diseases and other conditions that involve control of cell-surface proteins.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Deborah J Andrew
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biology
Map the molecular steps by which Hedgehog signals through the GPCR Tre1 to guide migrating germ cells in Drosophila embryos, from receptor binding to actin polymerization.
Douglas N Robinson
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biophysics
Test SpringSaLaD computer-model predictions about how Contractility Kits, premade bundles of myosin II, cortexillin I and IQGAP proteins, form in Dictyostelium amoebae, using measured cellular concentrations and binding strengths.
Xin Jie Chen
Upstate Medical University, NY·Biology
Test in yeast whether specific mitochondrial stresses cause severe protein-handling damage to the vacuole, the yeast lysosome. Use genetic screens to find genes that suppress this signaling and may extend lifespan.
The school
Rutgers University-New Brunswick: 57 labs on PI Pages, $837M a year on research, 713 research doctorates a year.
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