BBS Program
Yale University
P.O. Box 208084
New Haven, CT 06520-8084
Tel: 203.785.3735
Fax: 203.785.3734
bbs@yale.edu
Professor of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
A.B. Harvard University 1960
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley 1965
Intercellular communication is necessary for organisms to develop and function. Signaling via extra-cellular molecules is well studied; the more direct mechanism of communication via gap-junctions has been little studied. Gap junctions are present in essentially all tissues of all animals from the earliest embryonic stages. We have recently defined a new gene family whose thirty members code for invertebrate gap junction channels. This discovery allows us to use experimental methods available in Drosophila to study the role of gap junction communication in developmental mechanisms, channel function, and neural systems. In development, gap junctions often precede the formation of chemical synapses: signals specifying the synapse may pass through the gap junction. To study this possibility, we analyze a simple neural circuit in Drosophila. Mutation of gap junction genes eliminates certain chemical synapses in this circuit; the genes may be involved in the cell recognition responsible for the specificity of synaptic connections.
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Yale School of Medicine
Last updated
6/6/08
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