Luisa Capalbo
My area of interest is the role of membranes during cell division. In recent years several studies have described how membranes and membrane proteins play an important role for the successful completion of the cell division. Using the powerful tool of RNAi-mediated gene silencing and the available complete genome sequence of the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, we performed a screen for mitotic functions of the family of small monomeric GTPases. These molecules act as molecular switches cycling from an inactive (GDP-bound) to an active (GTP-bound) state. Most of these molecules are reversibly associated with membrane because of the post-translational modification of an hydrophobic group attached to the end of the protein. In this conformation small GTPases regulate many biological processes, including membrane trafficking, endocytosis, cytoskeletal architecture and cell growth. However, so far only few of them (e.g. Rho1, Ran) have been implicated in cell division.
Amongst the positive genes identified from our screen we found that the small GTPase Rab5, a typical endocytic protein, has a new role in mitosis. I have been using live cell imaging, molecular biology and biochemistry to investigate this new interesting function of Rab5 protein during cell division.
Areas of interest:- Identification of novel proteins involved in cell division
Dr. Luisa Capalbo
Address:
Department of Genetics,
University of Cambridge,
Downing Street,
Cambridge,
CB2 3EH,
England.
Email:
lc284@
mole.bio.cam.ac.uk
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