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Frank J. Turano, Ph.D. |
Associate Professor,
Department of Biology, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
The George Washington University
Department of Biological Sciences
2030 G Street, N.W., Lisner Hall, Room 340
Washington, DC 20052
E-mail: fturano@gwu.edu
Lab: (202) 994-0177
Office: (202) 994-0876
Fax: (202) 994-6100
Research
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| Frank J. Turano has four major projects that are
pertinent to the mission of the Institute. A/ Molecular and
Physiological Dissection of Plant GABA and Glutamate Receptors:
A recently identified family of plant genes designated the plant
glutamate receptors (GLRs) have high sequence similarity to
the six signature domains associated with animal ionotropic
glutamate receptors (iGLRs). There are twenty GLRs genes in
the Arabidopsis genome. The goal of this project is to determine
the temporal and spatial expression of the genes and then use
that information to clone the full-length cDNA for each gene
which will be expressed in animal kidney cells to determine
if they function as ligand-gated ion channels. To date they
have identified and sequenced four full-length cDNA clones (approximately
3,000 bp each). The sequence data has been used to conduct phylogenetic
analyses and determine evolutionary relationships between bacterial
amino acid binding proteins, the Arabidopsis GLRs and several
families of animal neurotransmitter receptors, including the
iGLRs and g-aminobutyric acid (GABA-BRs) receptors. B/ A genetic
approach to determine the role of GAD2 in the plant stress response:
Little is known about the physiological role of g-aminobutyric
acid (GABA) in higher plants. Researchers proposed GABA biosynthesis
as a regulator of cytosolic pH, reserve for carbon and/or nitrogen,
or deterrent to insect feeding. A recent publication suggested
that GABA functions as a signaling molecule in higher plants.
Several novel discoveries associated with GABA in plants form
the foundation of this hypothesis. The goal of this research
is to identify components of the GABA-signal transduction pathway(s),
using a series of transgenic plants with high or low levels
of GABA. These plants will be subjected to microarray analysis
to identify up- or down-regulated genes in the various transgenic
plants. To date he has cloned the two GAD genes from Arabidopsis.
In addition, he has constructed transgenic plants that have
the GAD gene constitutively turned-on (over-expressed with a
sense GAD2 gene construct) or turned-off (over-expressed with
an antisense GAD2 gene construct) thus the plants have high
or low levels of GABA, respectively. C/ Molecular mechanism(s)
of protection against pathogen invasion in potato: The third
project started as a “targeted” expressed sequence
tag project (EST) project, to identify up-regulated genes during
pathogen infection of potato. One objective of this research
is to determine the physiological role of one of the first ESTs
isolated and sequenced in the targeted-EST-project, a potato
homologue to a yeast autophagy 1 (AUT1) gene. In plants, autophagy
has been implicated in apoptosis and in several important cellular
and physiological processes such as embryogenesis, disease resistance,
and senescence. D/ A pharmacological dissection of the GABA-mediated
signaling pathway in higher plants: The goal of this research
is to identify components of GABA-mediated signal transduction
pathway including GABA-activated genes, GABA-binding proteins,
and/or GABA-like receptor(s) in higher plants using a scientific
approach that combines whole-plant bioassays, specific pharmaceuticals
that have been used to characterize animal GABA-binding proteins
or GABA receptors (GABA-Rs), and recent technological advances
in plant genomics, namely activation-tagged mutagenesis and
microarray analysis, in the model system Arabidopsis thaliana.
Pharmaceuticals specific to animal GABA-ARs or GABA-BRs, in
addition to the GABA analogs, a-aminobutyric acid (AABA) or
b-aminobutyric acid (BABA), were used to screen for mutants
in an “activation-tagged” population of Arabidopsis.
Insertion of the enhancer elements near a gene results in activation
or elevated expression. The overall concept of this project
is to identify mutants that have altered sensitivity to the
different GABA-related pharmaceuticals in order to identify
genes involved in GABA-mediated signaling. |
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