Signal transduction and protein-protein interactions

The laboratory is interested in understanding the signaling pathways that are involved in development of myocardial hypertrophy and heart failure.

More specifically, the laboratory is interested in characterizing signal transduction and protein-protein interactions associated to various membrane proteins and ion channels. Proteins of interest are synthesized as overlapping peptides on large peptide arrays and screen for intercations with putative protein partners. The biological function of the particular interactions is elucidated by use of specific cell-permeable peptides (CPP-technology).

By using this approach, the laboratory recently showed that the transmembrane protein, syndecan-4, interacts with the phosphatase, calcineurin, and activates the hypertrophic calcineruin-NFAT signaling pathway. pS179-syndecan-4 was identified to be a molecular switch negatively regulating the calcineurin interaction and NFAT activation.