Research Associate Professor, Life Sciences Institute; Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Biophysics
Rm. 3163 LSI
phone: 734-647-2195
About
We are a research team that is trying to understand the molecular details that determine how, where, and when motor proteins transport intracellular cargo. The past thirty years of cell biology research have set the stage for us to determine the general principles that underlie the complex process of intracellular transport.
Specifically, we are interested in the mechanisms that dictate how cytoplasmic dynein and kinesin are recruited to- and activated for- cargo transport. For each project, we will be trying to answer the following questions:
- How is specificity determined between motor proteins and cargo?
- How are the activities of multi-motor complexes regulated?
- What are the molecular consequences of neurodegenerative disease-causing mutations?
We will be approaching these questions using state of the art technologies that range from mammalian cell protein expression to cryo-EM to single molecule fluorescence assays. This integrated approach will allow us to relate how changes at the molecular level alter the structure and function of transporting motor-cargo complexes.
Representative Publications:
Lis1 has two opposing modes of regulating cytoplasmic dynein.DeSantis ME*, Cianfrocco MA*, Htet ZM*, Tran PT, Reck-Peterson SL#, Leschziner AE#.
COSMIC2: A Science Gateway for Cryo-Electron Microscopy. Cianfrocco MA#, Wong M, Youn C, Wagner R, Leschziner AE.
Mechanism and regulation of cytoplasmic dynein. Cianfrocco MA*, DeSantis ME*, Leschziner AE, Reck-Peterson SL#.
Low cost, high performance processing of single particle cryo-electron microscopy data in the cloud. Cianfrocco MA#, Leschziner AE. eLife. 2015 May 8;4. doi: 10.7554/eLife.06664.
Research Area(s):
Structural Biology
Single Molecule Biophysics
Cryo-Electron Microscopy
Cloud Computing
