Just back from another conference and Lee has added his recent poster to our growing collection. A quick rearrange and we have the wall of LaNt research!
Yes, we have gone too far, taking over a bunch of the poster boards on our floor but it is so cool seeing the work from the various members of my group coming together into a really big story. I recommend working from left to right as you look at them to get a picture from the gene to the protein to the whole tissue.
It starts at the transcript level with Lee’s poster showing LaNt regulation of laminin expression. Also including images of changing protein expression in squamous cell carcinoma from Valentina Barrera and Conro’s minigene analysis of critical residues involved in splicing regulation.
Next we move on to some of our cell biology work looking at LaNt a31 in the front of the eye where Vale B demonstrates differential distribution accacross the corneal epithelium and Lee and Valentina Iorio show knockdown and overexpression affecting cell migration/spreading
After that its into the molecular biology, with Vale I using fluorescently tagged LaNts and laminins to study their interplay in corneal epithelial cells in culture and also the effects LaNt overexpression has on junctional complex assembly and matrix organisation.
In Poster 4 Tobi and Vale B’s work brings us back to whole tissues, this time using limbal explants as a 3D model of corneal wound repair and includes our data demonstrating changes in LaNt distribution as wounds heal.
Finally Umar and Vale B show some quite preliminary work of LaNt roles in angiogenesis and the effect of overexpression/knockdown on HUVEC tube formation.
I will now be sending all new students to study all these posters before starting work in the group. Seems like an easy way to get up to speed!
LaNts and Laminins 