Former Members

Research Interests: I am interested in the physiological function of a-synuclein in neurons, especially its putative function in synaptic vesicle recycling (SVR). A-synuclein is implicated in Parkinson's disease, and malfunction of this protein in the modulation of SVR could be key in the search for possible new treatments.Parkinson Disease (PD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease. α-Synuclein plays a critical for familial and sporadic Parkinson Disease. This 14 KDa protein is highly expressed in the presynaptic compartment, but its function is still unknown. a-Synuclein was identified independently in several biological contexts as synaptic vesicle-associated components in the Torpedo electrical organ, as developmentally regulated gene products in the telencephalic circuit responsible for song learning in birds, and as generally abundant phosphoproteins in the mammalian brain. a...

The synuclein proteins are a group of three small proteins – α-, β-, and γ-synuclein – whose precise function is unknown, and which my project aims to identify. Of the three proteins, α-synuclein has been studied the most due to its involvement in neurodegenerative diseases, but we hypothesize that all three synucleins have the same or similar function due to their sequence conservation.I am using a variety of biochemical, biophysical, and cell biological methods to study synucleins’ interactions with membranes and other proteins. Based on the phenotypes of the synuclein triple-knockout mice that our lab generated and characterized (Greten-Harrison et al, 2010), I hypothesize that synucleins are regulators of neurotransmission through involvement in the synaptic vesicle cycle at the presynaptic terminal. By characterizing their interaction with membranes and other presynaptic...