Julia Chekanova
Assistant Professor, MBB
Ph.D.
Office: 312 BSB
Phone: (816) 235-2595
E-mail: ChekanovaJ
Research Areas
Relationships between mRNA quality control, processing and export in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Current Interests
Multiple quality control steps in eukaryotic cells ensure that only fully processed and correctly assembled mRNP complexes (i.e. messenger RNA associated with various protein factors into the messenger ribonucleoprotein particles) are released from the site of transcription and exported through the nuclear pores to the cytoplasm. Aberrant mRNPs are retained in the vicinity of the sites of transcription and ultimately degraded.
We are interested to explore and develop the recent discovery of mRNA quality control factors that monitor the proper assembly of mRNP complexes near the site of transcription. Remarkably, an overlapping set of factors is also involved in the recruitment, capture and retention of the transcriptionally activated genes at the nuclear periphery. Such physical proximity of highly active genes to nuclear pores likely facilitates the rapid export of mRNA from highly transcribed genes. In collaboration with Dmitry Belostotsky at UMKC, we are pursuing additional proteins involved in these processes as well as the exact nature of the retention mechanism that prevents the release of aberrant mRNA from the transcription sites. This research makes extensive use of yeast molecular genetics and genomics as well as cell biology, and in particular deconvolution microscopy.
