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Rebecca Hirsch

Postdoctoral Researcher

1998 - Ph.D., Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

1992 - B.S., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Massachusetts.

Address: 208 Mueller Lab, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802

Phone: (814) 863-9625

Research Interests:

I am interested in using a genetic approach to study the dynamic changes in cell shape and position that occur during animal development. Morphogenesis of epithelial cells is an important process during animal development, and defects in epithelial morphogenesis lead to human birth defects. Furthermore, misregulation of morphogenesis is implicated in malignant transformation and metastasis. We are using the process of ventral enclosure of the C. elegans hypodermis as a model system in which to study morphogenesis. Our lab has assembled a number of mutants that are affected in ventral enclosure, some of which may also show phenotypes later in epithelial development. Many of these mutants are at the early stages of phenotypic, genetic and molecular characterization. I am currently involved in a collective lab effort to characterize these mutants. In particular, I am mapping, performing complementation tests, and analyzing the phenotypes mutants (using 4D Nomarski microscopy and MH27-GFP fluorescence) of several of these. Following the basic phenotypic and genetic characterization existing mutant alleles, we will be conducting a forward genetic screen to look for new mutants that are disrupted in hypodermal enclosure. The purpose of this screen is both to isolate new mutants affected in enclosure, as well as to obtain multiple alleles of existing mutants. New mutants identified in the screen will be thoroughly characterized with respect to the nature of the mutant phenotype using 4D microscopy, MH27-GFP fluorescence and tissue-specific markers. These new alleles will be mapped, and mutants mapping near each other will be tested for allelism by complementation tests. Interesting mutants will be mapped to a small region (<200 kb) and cloned by cosmid rescue. Once the disrupted gene has been cloned, gene function will be tested in part by studying its expression pattern (Northerns, protein-specific antibodies, promoter-GFP reporter studies). The goal of this research is to delineate the network of molecular events controlling epithelial morphogenesis by identifying novel mutations disrupting this process.

Publications:

Hirsch, R. E., B. D. Lewis, E. P. Spalding, and M. R. Sussman. A role for the Akt1 channel in potassium absorption by Arabidopsis thaliana. Science 280:918-921,

Nakamura, R. L., W. L. McKendree, R. E. Hirsch, J. C. Sedbrook, R. F. Gaber and M. R. Sussman (1995) Expression of an Arabidopsis potassium channel gene in guard cells. Plant Physiology 109: 371-374.

Simon, A.E., H. L. Xiao, J. E. Lew, R. E. Stange*, C. Zhang, M. Polacco and C. D. Carpenter. (1992) Susceptibility and Resistance of Arabidopsis thaliana to Turnip Crinkle Virus. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 5: 496-503.

(*Published under former name)

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