Maureen Cetera
University of Minnesota, MN·Biology
As an embryo develops, cells must agree on which direction is which so they can move together and orient their behaviors. The Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) pathway lets neighboring cells pass this directional information to one another.
- Fields
Biology
Genetics
- Topics
planar cell polarity
directional cues
embryonic development
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2029
What they work on
- Identify directional cues that coordinate Planar Cell Polarity across the mouse epidermis, using natural mouse variants with region-specific hair misorientation and a candidate-gene approach.
- Test the hypothesis that the skin is divided into region-specific domains that each require distinct directional cues to align polarity across the whole tissue.
- Determine how identified directional cues alter the dynamics of core PCP protein asymmetry, such as their trafficking, stability or turnover, along the tissue axis.
More about the research
When it fails, the results include congenital heart defects, neural tube defects and shortened body axes. Neighbor-to-neighbor signaling explains local alignment, but on its own it would produce swirling patterns rather than the uniform direction seen across whole tissues. The field therefore believes that "directional cues", signals that vary in a gradient across a tissue, link PCP to the body axis. Their identities remain unknown.
Why it matters
Defects in planar cell polarity cause serious birth defects such as neural tube closure defects and congenital heart defects. Identifying the directional cues that organize polarity across whole tissues adds basic understanding of how embryonic tissues are patterned over long distances. That knowledge could eventually inform the study of these developmental disorders.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jyoti Misra
Stony Brook University, NY·Genetics
Test how the endocytic machinery that internalizes surface proteins, together with a competitive inhibitor, establishes and maintains the spatial organization of Dachsous–Fat signaling across Drosophila tissues.
Terry Lechler
Duke University, NC·Biology
Determine the molecular mechanisms that recruit mRNAs and translation regulators to desmosomes, the adhesion structures that bind skin cells together, at the cell edge.
Cheng-Ming Chuong
University of Southern California, CA·Biology
Test whether skin morphogenesis is built from linked sensor–actuator modules that turn physical cues, such as adhesion forces and ECM pulling, into gene activity, using living skin and organ explants.
The school
University of Minnesota: 88 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 722 research doctorates a year.
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