Name: Steven L. Sabol, M.D., Ph.D.
Address: Building 36, Room 1C06,
Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH
Telephone and voice mail: 301-496-3491
Fax: 301-402-0270
E-mail address: sabol@codon.nih.gov
We are utilizing techniques of biochemistry and molecular biology to investigate molecular mechanisms of apoptosis.
During a recent sabbatical year in the laboratory of Jonathan Ashwell (Laboratory of Immune Cell Biology, NCI), we developed cell-free systems to study nuclear events of apoptosis, which include chromatin condensation, nuclear fragmentation, and internucleosomal DNA cleavage, in lymphoid cell lines. In collaboration with Dr. Ashwell, we are currently utilizing a cell-free system to identify molecules involved in the rapid apoptosis of Jurkat human T-cell leukemia cells elicited by treatment with antibodies against the Fas protein. We are studying and purifying potentially important enzyme(s) which appear to be activated by upstream ICE-family proteases (Caspases) during the initiation of apoptosis and which are responsible for nuclear manifestations of apoptosis.
Our future plans are to explore apoptotic pathways in neural cells and other cell types with the tools of molecular biology previously utilized by us for many years in the study of neuropeptide gene expression and, more recently, in our study of radiation-induced apoptosis in the fetal rat brain.
Borovitskaya, A., Evtushenko, V., and Sabol, S.L. (1996) Gamma-radiation induced cell death the fetal rat brain possesses molecular characteristics of apoptosis and is associated with specific mRNA elevations. Molecular Brain Research 35, 19-30.
Bergasa, N.V., Sabol, S.L., Young, W.S., Kleiner, D.E., and Jones, E. A. (1995) Cholestasis is associated with preproenkephalin mRNA expression in the adult rat liver. American Journal of Physiology, 268 (Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology 31), G346-G354.
Joshi, J., and Sabol, S.L. (1991) Proenkephalin gene expression in C6 rat glioma cells: potentiation of cyclic AMP-dependent transcription by glucocorticoids. Molecular Endocrinology, 5, 1069-1080.
Kilpatrick, D.L., Zinn, S.A., Fitzgerald, M., Higuchi, H., Sabol, S.L., and Meyerhardt, J. (1990) Transcription of the rat and mouse proenkephalin genes is initiated at distinct sites in spermatogenic and somatic cells. Molecular and Cellular Biology 10, 3717-3726.
Sabol, S.L., and Higuchi, H. (1990) Transcriptional regulation of the neuropeptide Y gene by nerve growth factor: antagonism by glucocorticoids and potentiation by cyclic AMP and phorbol ester. Molecular Endocrinology 4, 384-392.