Thesis supervisor: Ernő Zádor
Location of studies (in Hungarian): University of Szeged, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry,H-6720 Szeged, Dóm tér 9. Abbreviation of location of studies: SZTE
Description of the research topic:
The skeletal muscle can be made transgenic by transfecting the fibers with a „foreign” gene in order to reveal the gene’s function. The introduced genes are most frequently key factors and inhibitors of the most important signal pathways. With the help of this method we learned that the major proteins of contraction, the myosin heavy chains and the major proteins for relaxation, the sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ATPases are regulated by distinct pathways, although they are expressed in a highly coordinated manner in differentiation and in many adaptational processes (Am. J. Physiol. 285:C853-C861; FEBS Lett. 579:749-752. The transgenic muscle can be advantageous compared to the completely transgenic animal because in this case the muscle development is taking place in wild type genetical background, therefore the effects of mutations interfering with muscle development can be avoided. Our present research is focused on the possible application of transgenic muscle in gene therapy (BBRC 375:265-270).
Required language skills: English Number of students who can be accepted: 1