Proteins control just about every process in the brain. Whether it is neuronal development in our early life, the memorization of guitar chords in high school, or the misfortune of getting Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s in later life, hardly any brain events escape the governance of proteins. Many brain functions and diseases remain a mystery, and that is because we do not have a complete list of brain proteins and their functions yet.

Our lab, therefore, hunts for hidden proteins and studies their functions in the brain.

We begin by rummaging through the process of protein synthesis. Proteins are made when mRNAs (envoys of genes) are translated into strings of amino acids by tiny cellular machineries called ribosomes. And the dogma is that a given mRNA possesses only one start and stop site for translation and thus codes for only one variant of protein. But our search goes beyond this view. You guessed it: we aim for mRNAs that have more than one start or stop sites and encode multiple protein variants.

One of our discoveries is AQP4X, an extended variant of the water channel protein Aquaporin4, generated when ribosomes use an alternative stop site on the Aqp4 mRNA. We have found that AQP4X is required for removing Amyloid beta peptides (sticky proteins that can instigate Alzheimer’s disease) from the brain. Ongoing projects in the lab are exploring AQP4X as well as other protein variants.

With a focus on atypical proteins, our lab is illuminating brain function and disease from unique molecular standpoints. To learn more, please visit our Research page.

Our research is supported by: