Plant Cell Biology

BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC POSITION:
• Principal Investigator: Chamovitz Laboratory of Complex Biology, Department of Plant Sciences, Tel Aviv University
• Professor, Department of Plant Sciences, Tel Aviv University

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Our lab is focused primarily on understanding the role of the COP9 signalosome (CSN) in regulating development. The CSN is a multi-subunit protein complex that was originally identified in Arabidopsis (Chamovitz et al. 1996), but which we later showed to be essential for animal development (Freilich et al. 1999; Oron et al. 2002). The CSN functions at the nexus of signaling inputs and ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation pathways. We are using a combination of genetic, molecular and genomic approaches to dissect the varied roles of the CSN in the development of plants and animals, using both Arabidopsis and Drosophila as model systems.

Specific topics studied now in the lab include:

• Systems biology approaches to studying the CSN
• Bioinformatic approaches for cross-organismic transcripome analysis
• Revealing the interaction of the COP9 signalosome and eIF3 in Arabidopsis development
• Elucidating the roles of specific CSN subunits by:
– Structure/function studies of CSN subunit 7 and its multiple interacting proteins
– Studying Drosophila mutants in each CSN subunit. Large-scale microarray analysis of csn mutants
• The role of an anti-cancer drug in plants