Research
The research of our lab is directed toward understanding the critical physical chemical roles that involve combinatorial and mutual interactions shared between the transcription factors, serum response factor, Nkx2-5, GATA4/6 and Lim proteins in defining the genetic readout that underlie the establishment of cardiac and smooth muscle differentiation.We have shown that SRF may play a leading role in the commitment of cardiac progenitors by virtue of its ability for making specific protein-protein associations with other early cardiac enriched transcription factors such as the cardiac restricted homeodomain factor Nkx2-5, the dual zinc finger protein GATA4 and the LIM proteins CRP1 and CRP2.
We also study the function of Nkx2-5, a transcription factor instrumental in the patterning of the embryonic heart. We showed that developmental regulation of the murine Nkx2-5 genetic locus is highly complex and modular. We pinpointed the novel high affinity Nkx2-5 DNA binding sites and elucidated the regulatory domains of Nkx2-5 which revealed functional roles in humans carrying Nkx2-5 mutations and displaying congenital atrial septal defects.
