Jason Ear
Assistant Professor , Biological Sciences, College of Science
Research
My research interest includes generating cell-based and zebrafish models of human diseases. The diseases that my lab focus on are ones involving mutations with scaffold protein Daple, a regulator of Wnt and G-protein signaling. Mutations in Daple have been identified in patients with hydrocephalus, spinocerebellar ataxia, and some cancers. Generating these models will help to provide further insight into the underlying mechanisms of these diseases.
  |
| Zebrafish embryo at 30 hpf (left) and live fluorescent blood cells in circulation (right) |
 |
| Adult zebrafish skeleton stained with Alizarin Red S |
Another focus of the lab is to understand how post-translational modifications (particularly protein phosphorylation) of PDZ-binding motifs, PBMs, regulate interaction with PDZ domains. PDZ domains are one of the most abundant protein domains and play a key role in signal transduction. PBMs bind to PDZ domains with high specificity and are tightly regulated. Disruption of PDZ-PBM interactions have been found to occur in maladies such as cancers, neurological disorders, and viral infections. Further insight into the complex regulation between PDZ domains and PBMs will aid in understanding how these interactions can be leverage for therapeutics.
 |
||
| PDZ domain interacting with a PBM | Illustration of poximity labeling experiment used to identify PDZ domain interacting with Daple |