Participant 5. Patricia Kuwabara (PK), PhD

University of Bristol, Department of Biochemistry, United Kingdom

(Faculty member of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute until November 2003)

Role in the project: We will contribute to workpackage 3 together with participant 6. Members of the lab are skilled in the use of the nematode worm flow sorter. In addition, we will interact with participant 4 in the analysis specific phenotypes. We aim to generate a minimum of 12,000 insertions within 3 years.

Expertise/Resources: Our laboratory has extensive experience in all areas of C. elegans genetics and biochemistry. To this end, we are equipped with high-end microscopes for pursuing genetic and cell biological studies and we also have the capability to pursue high-throughput genomic analysis. The University of Bristol has provided strong support for our genomic programme by infusing funds for infrastructure redevelopment. Moreover the Departments of Biochemistry at Bristol and Cambridge are the only two Universities in the UK to receive the top 5* rating for research. The department is well-equipped and can provide us with expertise in proteomics and access to excellent confocal imaging resources. Our own research programme is varied - ranging from the role of lipids and sterols in development to the analysis of DNA damage and repair mechanisms.

Publications:

1.       Kuwabara, P. E. (2003) The multifaceted C. elegans major sperm protein: an ephrin signaling antagonist in oocyte maturation. Genes Dev. 17: 155-161.

2.       Bergamaschi, D., Samuels, Y., O'Neil, N. J., Trigiante, G., Crook, T., Hsieh, J.-K., O'Conner, D. J., Zhong, S., Campargue, I., Tomlinson, M. L., Kuwabara, P.E., and Lu, X. (2003). iASPP oncoprotein is a key inhibitor of p53 conserved from worm to human. Nature Genetics 33:162-167.

3.       Kuwabara, P. E., and Labouesse, M. (2002). The sterol-sensing domain: multiple families, a unique role? Trends Genetics 18: 193-201.

4.       Kuwabara, P. E., Lee, M. H., Schedl, T., and Jefferis, G. S. (2000). A C. elegans patched gene, ptc-1, functions in germ-line cytokinesis. Genes Dev 14: 1933-1944.

5.       Lum, D., Kuwabara, P. E., Zarkower, D., and Spence, A. M. (2000). Direct protein-protein interaction between the intracellular domain of TRA-2 and the transcription factor TRA-1A modulates feminizing activity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genes Dev 14: 3153-3165.

6.       Sokol, S. B., and Kuwabara, P. E. (2000). Proteolysis in C. elegans sex determination: Cleavage of TRA-2A by the calpain TRA-3. Genes Dev 14: 901-906.