| Grant number: | 00/12216-8 |
| Support Opportunities: | Research Projects - Thematic Grants |
| Start date: | October 01, 2001 |
| End date: | March 31, 2006 |
| Field of knowledge: | Health Sciences - Medicine - Medical Clinics |
| Principal Investigator: | Sara Teresinha Olalla Saad |
| Grantee: | Sara Teresinha Olalla Saad |
| Host Institution: | Faculdade de Ciências Médicas (FCM). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil |
| Pesquisadores principais: | Jose Antonio Rocha Gontijo |
Abstract
The cell membranes are involved in different functions and are, basically, composed by a lipid bilayer, peripheral and integral proteins. The peripheral proteins make up the cytoskeleton and the integral proteins are commonly glicoproteins involved in water and ion transport, adhesion, signalling, etc. The organization of the erythrocyte cytoskeleton and its importance in maintaining erythrocyte shape and deformability are well established. Unexpectedly, recent studies have revealed that cytoskeletal networks are present in various intracellular structures that are involved in regulation of major cellular functions as clustering and regulation of proteins associated with the plasma membrane, control of morphogenesis and cell proliferation, protein sorting and trafficking in the GoIgi apparatus, regulation of transcription factors, etc. Band 3, the red cell anion-exchanger, connects the cytoskeleton to the lipid bilayer and detinitively corroborates for the integrity of the red cell membrane. Besides that, band 3 controls the plasma and intracellular pH It is also present in kidney and heart. During the last ten years, we have been studying proteins of the erythrocyte membrane , as for example, spectrin, ankyrin and band 3. At the present moment, our interests lay in the detection and characterization of new proteins of this family of genes, as well as the detection of the interaction of these proteins with others. With the Project Cancer Genome, financially supported by FAPESP, we selected several EST homologous to the proteins mentioned. We intend to extend these EST, sequence the new genes and characterize the proteins codified. In addition to this, using two-hybrid system, we intend to investigate new proteins which interact with the proteins mentioned above. It is our aim to determine the pattern of expression of these new proteins in the different human tissues, which will be performed by multi-tissue Northern-blotting, and to determine the cellular localization of new proteins using immunofluorescence. Finally, we intend to evaluate, by means of microarrays and macroarrays, the involvement of these proteins in the regulation of the expression of other genes and their role in normal and tumour tissues. (AU)
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