Hammarskjold, Marie-Louise
Primary Appointment
Professor, Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology
Education
- BS, Chemistry, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
- MS, Biochemistry, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
- MD, Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
- PhD, Medical Microbiology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
- Postdoc, Medical Microbiology, SUNY at Stony Brook
Contact Information
PO Box 800734
Pinn Hall 7086
Telephone: 434-982-1598
Email: mh7g@virginia.edu
Research Disciplines
Biotechnology, Cancer Biology, Immunology, Infectious Diseases/Biodefense
Research Interests
Post Transcriptional Gene Regulation and the Molecular Biology of Human Retroviruses
Research Description
Many mammalian and viral genes are alternatively spliced and subject to regulation at the post- transcriptional level. However, relatively little is known about the cellular mechanisms for this regulation. We are using retroviruses as model systems to elucidate these mechanisms. Some of our studies focus on HIV Rev, an essential HIV protein. Rev mediates the nucleo-cytoplasmic export of unspliced and incompletely spliced HIV RNAs and provides an important HIV drug target. Another major focus of the laboratory is the function of the constitutive transport element (CTE).
The CTE interacts directly with host cell proteins to facilitate export of intron containing RNA. We are currently analyzing the function of cellular proteins that are involved in the CTE mediated export pathway. One is NXF1 (TAP), a protein which has been proposed to play an essential role in cellular mRNA export. A second protein under study is NXT1, an important TAP cofactor. CTE function is also enhanced by SAM68, a major target of Src and Src family kinases and a potential tumor suppressor. Our studies are aimed at identifying the mechanism by which SAM68 promotes CTE function and the role that this protein plays in cellular gene regulation.