Cellular mechanisms of neuronal dysfunction

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Using a the SERCaMP technology that we previously developed, we found that both a cafeteria diet and high fat diet cause ER calcium dysfunction in rat liver. The dysregulation of ER calcium is implicated in wide variety of disease states. Our findings provide a possible mechanism by which liver function is altered in response to excessive fat in the diet. Our findings our published in the Journal of Hepatology. The relationship of ER stress and ER calcium dysregulation in not well understood. To facilitate our understanding of this relationship, we developed a method that uses two different bioluminescent proteins in combination to concurrently monitor endoplasmic reticulum stress and calcium homeostasis. Our study published in PLOS ONE enables us to study how these cellular processes change over time in neurodegeneration and other diseases. We describe the characterization and development of multiple transgenic tools that express a near-infrared fluorescent protein (IRFP) in neurons as a reporter of transgene expression. The longer wavelength of light used for visualization offers many advantages over other fluorescent reporters used for neuroscience applications related to our work on the cellular mechanisms of neuronal dysfunction. This work was published in J Neuroscience Methods. In collaboration with Dr. Yun Wang (NHRI, Taiwan), we have shown that 9-cis retinoic acid can improve recovery from stroke.