Valeria Vasquez
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX·Biophysics
Cells feel touch, pressure and stretch through mechanosensitive ion channels. These proteins open in response to mechanical force and let charged particles flow, which turns a physical push into an electrical signal.
- Fields
Biophysics
Physiology
Neuroscience
- Topics
mechanosensitive ion channels
PIEZO channels
fatty acids
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2029
What they work on
- Define how saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids in the membrane change the mechanical responses of mammalian mechanosensitive channels such as PIEZO, using functional studies.
- Determine whether fatty acids modulate bacterial mechanosensitive channels by shared mechanisms, to reveal unifying rules of membrane control across the channel family.
- Develop fatty acid–based dietary strategies to ease disorders caused by increased or reduced PIEZO2 activity, building on mouse models of neurological disorders.
- Uncover new physiological roles of PIEZO channels in the roundworm C. elegans using behavioral and genetic approaches.
More about the research
The PIEZO channels belong to this family and help with gentle touch, proprioception (the sense of body position), skeletal development, wound healing, red blood cell volume and even sensing food. When they malfunction, balance, pain and bone growth can suffer. There are still few drugs that act on these channels. The question here is how the fats that make up the cell membrane tune these channels, and whether diet could be used to adjust them.
Why it matters
Mechanosensitive channels are involved in mechanical pain, touch and wound healing. Learning how membrane fatty acids tune them could lay groundwork for new pharmacological tools. Combinations of dietary fatty acids may offer a strategy to ease mechanical pain and speed wound healing. This could also help people with disorders tied to PIEZO channel dysfunction.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
John Bankston
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Biophysics
Determine how single-tail lipids, including polyunsaturated fatty acids, lysophosphatidyl cholines and N-acyl amino acids, bind to ASIC3, an acid-sensing ion channel, and how they boost or open it.
Amy Lee
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Neuroscience
Generate renewable monoclonal antibodies and nanobodies that specifically recognize α2δ-4, the protein encoded by the retinal disease gene CACNA2D4, for electron and super-resolution light microscopy.
William Tracey
Indiana University, IN·Neuroscience
Characterize the function of nociception genes identified through forward genetic screens, focusing on evolutionarily conserved genes not already known to play important roles in sensing tissue-damaging stimuli.
The school
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston: 25 labs on PI Pages, $419M a year on research, 340 research doctorates a year.
More about University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
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