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Claire Walczak Lab
Research
Interests
My lab is
interested in the mechanisms of mitosis.
Because of the global importance of this event,
the cell has devised an elegant macromolecular
machine, the mitotic spindle, to ensure accurate
chromosome segregation. Our goals include
understanding how a cell builds a mitotic
spindle, how the cell segregates chromosomes on
the spindle, and how these processes are
regulated during mitosis. Understanding this
process is important because blocking cell
division is a major approach in cancer
chemotherapy.
Of prime importance during spindle assembly are
the regulated dynamics of microtubules that
occur during interphase and mitosis. We use a
combination of in vitro assays for the
regulation of microtubule dynamics with purified
proteins, reconstitution of spindle formation
using meiotic extracts from Xenopus eggs,
and high-resolution live and fixed cell imaging
of microtubule dynamics and organization in
living cells in culture. This approach provides
a framework to further decipher the molecular
mechanism of spindle assembly and chromosome
segregation. We ask questions regarding the
multiple physiological roles of microtubules in
cells, how their dynamics are regulated by
cellular proteins, and how the activity of
microtubule dynamics regulators are controlled
temporally and spatially within cells. Our
ultimate goals are to identify new molecular
targets that can be used to treat a variety of
diseases in which altered microtubule activity
is critical and to develop drugs that can target
these regulators.
Selected
Publications
Ems-McClung,
S.C., Zheng, Y., and Walczak, C.E. (2004).
Importin a/b and Ran-GTP regulate XCTK2
Microtubule Binding. Mol. Biol. Cell. 15:46-57.
Kline-Smith,
S.L., Khodjakov, A., Hergert, P., and Walczak,
C.E. (2004). Depletion of Centromeric MCAK
Leads to Chromosome Congression and Segregation
Defects Due to Improper Kinetochore
Attachments. Mol. Biol. Cell. 15: 1146-1159.
Kline-Smith,
S.L. and Walczak, C.E. (2004). Mitotic Spindle
Assembly and Chromosome Segregation: Re-focusing
on MT Dynamics. Mol. Cell. 15:317-327.
Hertzer, K.M,
Ems-McClung, S.C., Kline-Smith, S.L., Lipkin,
T., Gilbert, S.P. and Walczak, C.E. (2006) Full
Length Dimeric MCAK is a More Efficient
Microtubule Depolymerase than Minimal Domain
Monomeric MCAK. Mol. Biol. Cell. 17:700-710.
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