Xuerui Yang
gredellj(at)msu.edu
1103 Engineering Building
517.432.2394
Hometown: Shanxi, China
Undergraduate Institution:
Tsinghua University
Interests: music, movie, volleyball, tennis, swimming, chess
Project title: Regulation of the cellular
apoptosis and insulin signaling pathways
Project Description: Intracellular signal transduction
pathways are involved in regulating many cellular activities, such as
proliferation, differentiation, intracellular metabolism, and apoptosis. I
am investigating the signal transduction pathway that mediates the
apoptosis induced by saturated fatty acid, e.g. palmitate, in liver cells.
Using the various molecular biology techniques, including immunoblotting,
immunoprecipitation, RT-PCR, gene over-expression, RNAi, protein activity
assays, and so on, we have identified two signaling pathways correlating
ds-RNA dependent protein kinase (PKR) with Bcl-2, an anti-apoptotic
protein. We found that palmitate induces cellular apoptosis, at lease in
part, by modulating these two pathways.
Insulin signaling pathway is another important signaling process,
which modulates the glucose and fatty acid metabolism. I am also studying
the involvement of PKR in regulating insulin signaling pathway in liver
cells. The preliminary results indicate that PKR affects the level and
phosphorylation of Insulin Receptor Substrate (IRS)-1 and IRS-2,
suggesting that PKR acts as a tuner of insulin signaling pathway in liver
cells. The mechanism by which PKR affects the insulin signaling pathway is
still under investigation.
PI: Christina Chan