简介

Our laboratory studies the roles of proto-oncogene proteins in the signal transduction pathways that control proliferation, survival, and differentiation of mammalian cells. Current research is focused on 1) the mechanisms by which the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase)/Akt signaling pathway regulates cell survival by suppressing apoptosis and 2) the mechanism by which the MEK/ERK pathway acts to induce neuronal differentiation. The effects of these signaling pathways are mediated in large part by changes in gene expression, and our studies have focused on using global gene expression profiling to identify the genes that are regulated by PI 3-kinase/Akt signaling and MEK/ERK signaling associated with cell survival and differentiation, respectively. We have combined these results with computational prediction of transcription factor binding sites to identify transcription factors that are targeted by these pathways, and thus to infer the gene regulatory networks that mediate these cellular responses. Ongoing studies are focused on understanding the gene regulatory networks controlled by these pathways in a variety of different types of mammalian cells, including human cancer cells with varying oncogene mutations, neuronal cells, and embryonic cells.