James F. Martin

TAMHSC Arrows IBT Arrows Faculty Arrows James F. Martin

James F. Martin, MD, Ph.D.

Professor
Center for Molecular Disease and Development
Member of the GSBS Faculty

2121 W. Holcombe Blvd.
Houston, Texas 77030
Phone: 713-677-7558
Email: jmartin@ibt.tamhsc.edu
Lab Webpage: http://www.ibt.tamhsc.edu/labs/ccscb/

Education and Post-Graduate Training

James F. Martin graduated magna cum laude in chemistry from Fordham University, Bronx, New York, received an M.D. from the University of Texas-Houston Medical School where he also did a residency in general surgery. He received a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Texas-Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 1995 and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center (1995-1996). He joined the Center for Cancer and Stem Cell Biology in the IBT, Texas A&M Health Science Center in 1996 as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2002 and Professor in 2006. He is a member of the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, College of Medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center. He is currently Interim Director of the Center for Molecular Disease & Development.

Teaching Interests

Graduate and Specialized Research Training in Cardiac and Craniofacial Stem Cell Biology

Research Interests

The focus of my lab is to understand the molecular mechanisms controlling cell growth and differentiation in the context of vertebrate embryogenesis and thus to advance our understanding of the causes of birth defects. Using the mouse as a model system, we study the role of homeobox genes in cell growth and differentiation within the craniofacial skeleton. Our experimental approaches include creating targeted gene mutations through "knock-out" technology, as well as other transgenic techniques to express genes of interest in the mouse. A related interest of our lab is to understand how environmental factors such as teratogens interact with the genome to generate congenital defects.

Selected Publications

Five Most Significant Publications Prior to 2009

Lu, M-F., Pressman, C., Dyer, R., Johnson, R.L., and Martin, J.F. (1999) Function of Rieger syndrome gene in left-right asymmetry and craniofacial development. Nature 401: 276-278.

Liu, C., Liu, W., Palie, J, Lu, M.F., Brown N, and Martin, J.F. (2002) Pitx2c patterns anterior myocardium and aortic arch vessels and is required for local cell movement into atrioventricular cushions. Development 129: 5081-5091.

Liu, W., Selever, J., Wang, D., Lu, M.F., Moses, K.A., Schwartz, R.J. and Martin, J.F. (2004) Bmp4 signaling is required for outflow tract septation and branchial arch artery remodeling. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 101: 4489-4494.

Ma, L., M. Lu, R. J. Schwartz, and Martin J. F. Bmp2 is essential for atrioventricular cushion formation and myocardial patterning. (2005) Development 132: 5601-5611.

Ai, D., Fu, X., Wang, J., Lu, M. F., Chen, L., Baldini, A., Klein, W. H. and Martin, J. F. (2007) Canonical Wnt signaling functions in second heart field to promote right ventricular growth. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104: 9319-24.

Publications 2009

Bénazet, J.D., Bischofberger, M., Tiecke, E., Goncalves, A., Martin, J.F., Zuniga, A., Naef, F. and Zeller, R. (2009) A self-regulatory system of interlinked signaling feedback loops controls vertebrate limb patterning. Science 323: 1050-1053.

Suzuki, S., Miwa, N., Jugessur, A., Natsume, N., Shi, M., Ohbayashi, N., Suzuki, Y., Furukawa, H., Vieira, A., Lidral, A.C., Marazita, M.L., Martin, J.F., and Murray, J.C. (2009) Mutations in BMP4 cause both microform and non syndromic cleft lip and palate. Am J Hum Genet 84: 406-11 [Epub 2009 Feb 26]

Espinoza-Lewis, R.A., Yu, L., He, F., Liu, H., Tang, R., Shi, J., Sun, X., Martin, J.F., Wang, D., Yang, J. and Chen, Y. (2009) Shox2 is essential for the differentiation of cardiac pacemaker cells by repressing Nkx2-5. Dev Biol 327: 376-85 [Epub 2009 Jan 3]

Huang, Z., Wang, D., Ihida-Stansbury, K., Jones, P.L., and James F. Martin (2009) Defective pulmonary vascular remodeling in Smad8 mutant mice. Human Mol. Genet. 18: 2791-2801 [EPub 2009 May 5].

Calmont, A., Ivins, S., Lammerts Van Bueren, K., Papangeli, I., Kyriakopoulou, V., Martin, J.F., Moon, A.M., Basson, M. A., and Peter J. Scambler (2009) Tbx1 controls cardiac neural crest cell migration during arch artery development by regulating Gbx2 expression in the pharyngeal ectoderm. Development 136, 3173-3183 [EPub 2009 Sep].

Zagoraiou L, Akay T, Martin JF, Brownstone RM, Jessell TM, Miles GB. (2009) A cluster of cholinergic premotor interneurons modulates mouse locomotor activity. Neuron 64:645-62.

Publications 2010

Wang J, Klysik E, Sood S, Johnson RL, Wehrens XH, Martin JF. (2010) Pitx2 prevents susceptibility to atrial arrhythmias by inhibiting left-sided pacemaker specification. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 May 25;107(21):9753-8. [Epub 2010 May 10]. PMID: 20457925

Cao H, Wang J, Li X, Florez S, Huang Z, Venugopalan SR, Elangovan S, Skobe Z, Margolis HC, Martin JF, Amendt BA. (2010) MicroRNAs play a critical role in tooth development. J Dent Res. 2010 Aug;89(8):779-84. [Epub 2010 May 26]. PMID: 20505045

Zhang Z, Florez S, Gutierrez-Hartmann A, Martin JF, Amendt BA. (2010) MicroRNAs regulate pituitary development, and microRNA 26b specifically targets lymphoid enhancer factor 1 (Lef-1), which modulates pituitary transcription factor 1 (Pit-1) expression. J Biol Chem. 2010 Nov 5;285(45):34718-28. Epub 2010 Aug 31. PMID: 20807761

Zhang J, Chang JY, Huang Y, Lin X, Luo Y, Schwartz RJ, Martin JF, Wang F. (2010) The FGF-BMP signaling axis regulates outflow tract valve primordium formation by promoting cushion neural crest cell differentiation. Circ Res. 2010 Nov 12;107(10):1209-19. [Epub 2010 Sep 16]. PMID: 20847311

Wang J, Greene SB, Bonilla-Claudio M, Tao Y, Zhang J, Bai Y, Huang Z, Black BL, Wang F, Martin JF. (2010) Bmp signaling regulates myocardial differentiation from cardiac progenitors through a MicroRNA-mediated mechanism. Dev Cell. 2010 Dec 14;19(6):903-12. PMID: 21145505