Research Description
A major goal of our lab is to better understand the role of post-transcriptional gene regulation in the development, differentiation, and function of the nervous system. The nervous system provides an attractive model to study the mechanism and role of cell-type specific gene regulation because it is composed of diverse neuronal cells that require customized regulatory programs to achieve specialized functions. One research area in my group will focus on understanding the mechanisms and function of alternative splicing in the developing and mature nervous system using both mammalian stem cells and C. elegans. Through the process of alternative splicing, multiple messenger RNAs can be generated from single precursor transcripts. The evolution of alternative splicing has greatly contributed to the diversification of metazoan transcriptomes, and in some species can generate up to an order of magnitude greater number of transcript isoforms than the corresponding repertoire of protein-coding genes. We pursue these problems using a combination of biochemistry, cell biology, molecular genetics, and genome-wide analyses. Additionally, several ongoing projects are directing our research towards investigating the role of other layers of co- and post-transcriptional gene regulation in nervous system development and function.