Background:

I received my B.S. with honors from the Department of Physiology at the National University of Singapore.

My honors year project was carried out in Dr Alan Lee’s lab,  where we worked on characterizing PlexinB3, a protein which is implicated in axon guidance.

I worked with Dr Rachel Kraut to study the role of Drosophila Blue Cheese in lysosome transport.

 

Research Project:

        The elongated structure of neurons makes them particularly susceptible to intracellular transport defects. Numerous neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease exhibit impaired axonal transport. Additional observations strengthen the link between this process and neurodegeneration. For example, lesions in the gene for the motor protein, kinesin‐1 have been found in patients with hereditary spastic paraplegia, a motor disorder that results in paralysis.

        Kinesins, cytoplasmic dynein and myosin V are motor proteins which carry out intracellular transport. These motors walk along cytoskeletal tracks to deliver their cargoes to various regions in the cell. Kinesins and dynein are microtubule‐binding motors. Kinesins are responsible for anterograde transport and ferry proteins, mRNA and organelles away from the cell body for metabolic purposes and to propagate signaling. Conversely, excess or senescent proteins and organelles are brought back to the cell body by the retrograde motor, dynein for degradation. Myosin V binds to actin filament near the cell membrane and is important for transport near the cell’s periphery.

        How a cargo gets to its destination, which motor protein it binds to, and how the movement of the cargo is regulated is still largely unknown. I am currently working to answer these questions by studying the movement of neurosecretory vesicles in the axons of live Drosophila larvae.

 

Publications:

Djagaeva I, Rose DJ, Lim A, Venter CE, Brendza KM, Moua P, Saxton WM. Genetics. Three routes to suppression of the neurodegenerative phenotypes caused by kinesin heavy chain mutations. 2012 Sep;192(1):173-83. doi: 10.1534/genetics.112.140798. Epub 2012 Jun 19.

Lim, A., Kraut, R. 2009 The Drosophila BEACH Family Protein, Blue Cheese, Links Lysosomal Axon Transport with Motorneuron Degeneration. J. Neurosci. 29 (3)