Speaker: Uygar Tazebay  

Title: Regulation of cellular phase-separation and liquid-liquid demixing during cytokinesis

Date/Time: March 6, 2019 / 13:40 - 14:30

Place: FENS G029

Abstract: Coiled-coil domain-containing protein 124 (Ccdc124) is an intrinsically disordered conserved eukaryote protein. Ccdc124 protein contains at least one putative RNA binding domain, and a number of possible RNA interactors were identified in silico. Two different approaches, SILAC and bio-ID, were used in mass-spectrometry analysis in order to find proteins interacting with Ccdc124, and lists of Co-IP validated strong and loose interactors were mainly composed of proteins previously identified either in nuclear or cytoplasmic phase separated complexes. By using immunofluorescence confocal microscopy analysis, we have identifed Ccdc124 protein mainly in centrosome, but also in multiple phase separated complexes such as p-bodies, nucleoli, nuclear splicing speckles, temperature induced stress-granules, as well as in midbody during cytokinetic abscission. We are proposing Ccdc124 as a novel component of multiple nuclear and cytoplasmic phase-separated complexes, and try to identify its role in these biomolecular complexes during cytokinesis.

Bio: Uygar Tazebay obtained his Ph.D. in 1998 at the University of Paris-IX with his work on genetic regulation of amino acid uptake in eukaryotes. He then joined the team of Nancy Carrasco at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, and discovered iodide transport system in lactating breast tissue. He has shown that the same system is abnormally upregulated in human breast cancers, and patented a diagnostic and therapeutic methodology on the use of radioactive iodide isotopes in treating malignant mammary gland tumors. He joined Bilkent University as a faculty member in 2001, and there he dissected molecular regulatory mechanisms of mammary gland iodide transport function. He then moved to Gebze Technical University, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in 2013, and changed his research subject from gene regulation to functional genomics and cell biology. His current interest is formation of phase-separated membraneless organelles, and their functions in physiology of multiple cellular systems.

Contact: Öznur Taştan