Eric Lam Professor Rutgers University School of Env & Biol Sciences Dept. of Plant Science Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment Room 216B New Brunswick. NJ 08903 (732) 932-8165. Ext. 220 FAX - 6535 lam@aesop.rutgers.edu

Gene expression. chromatin structure. signal transduction. programmed cell death. gene targeting. leaf morphogenesis

Since 1996. my laboratory has also initiated a project to map the global structure of chromatin in situ using autofluorescent proteins as DNA markers. This approach open for the first time a window to the subnuclear architecture in live cells and should provide new understandings on the organization and dynamics of the biological information contained within chromosomes. We are also applying a fluorescent protein fusion tagging approach at a whole genome level with the aim of producing a collection of transgenic plant lines that will have most of the proteins in the genome tagged with a visible marker. These resources and novel technologies should provide an exciting opportunity to study subcellular organization of DNA and proteins at a global scale.

My research interests are in the area of programmed cell death. in terms of its mechanism of activation as well as its role in disease resistance. Programmed cell death (pcd) is a fundamental process that is recognized to occur in higher eukaryotes. Thus. during development of a multicellular organism. certain cells are destined to turnover in relatively predictable times and places. In addition. environmental and hormonal signals can also activate a cellular suicide program. Although pcd has been intensely studied in the past several years. particularly in mammalian cells and C. elegans. the actual mechanism through which eukaryotic cells commit suicide remains enigmatic. The current working hypothesis in this field is that the cellular machinery for pcd is present all the time in eukaryotic cells and is actively suppressed by certain proteins. Recently. we obtained evidence through inhibitor studies that caspases. a family of proteases that are conserved in animals as key regulators of pcd. are also likely to be involved in at least some cases of pcd in plants. This exciting finding suggests that the underlying mechanism for pcd may be conserved across plant and animal kingdoms. At the present time. my research focus in this area is directed at the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms involved in pcd and how this process can be regulated in vivo and are currently engaged in the characterization of plant caspases. To this end. we have designed a novel detection technology for visualizing and tracking specific protease activities in living cells. This technology is currently being deployed to functionally clone the plant proteases that may be involved in controlling pcd. Ultimately. we would like to define the regulatory pathways through which caspases involved in HR-pcd are controlled. This work should have broad impact on our understanding of how control of cellular suicide can be regulated to counter diseases as diverse as viruses and neurodegenerative disorders.

Selected Publications

Rosin FM, Watanabe N, Cacas JL, Kato N, Arroyo JM, Fang Y, May B, Vaughn M, Simorowski J, Ramu U, McCombie RW, Spector DL, Martienssen RA, Lam E. (2008) Genome-wide transposon tagging reveals location-dependent effects on transcription and chromatin organization in Arabidopsis. Plant J. Jun 2. [Epub ahead of print]

Jovtchev G, Watanabe K, Pecinka A, Rosin FM, Mette MF, Lam E, Schubert I. (2008) Size and number of tandem repeat arrays can determine somatic homologous pairing of transgene loci mediated by epigenetic modifications in Arabidopsis thaliana nuclei. Chromosoma. 117(3):267-76.

Watanabe N, Lam E. (2008) BAX inhibitor-1 modulates endoplasmic reticulum stress-mediated programmed cell death in Arabidopsis. J Biol Chem. 283(6):3200-10.

Lee MY. Zhou Y. Lung RW. Chye ML. Yip WK. Zee SY. Lam E. (2006) Expression of viral capsid protein antigen against Epstein-Barr virus in plastids of Nicotiana tabacum cv. SR1. Biotechnol Bioeng. 94(6):1129-37.

Belkacemi L. Lam E. Caldwell JD. Siemens DR. Graham CH. (2006) Stimulation of human breast carcinoma cell invasiveness and urokinase plasminogen activator activity by glucose deprivation. Exp Cell Res. 312(10):1685-92.

Watanabe N. Lam E. (2006) Arabidopsis Bax inhibitor-1 functions as an attenuator of biotic and abiotic types of cell death. Plant J. 45(6):884-94.

Zhou YX. Lee MY. Ng JM. Chye ML. Yip WK. Zee SY. Lam E. (2006) A truncated hepatitis E virus ORF2 protein expressed in tobacco plastids is immunogenic in mice. World J Gastroenterol. 12(2):306-12.

Watanabe K. Pecinka A. Meister A. Schubert I. Lam E. (2005) DNA hypomethylation reduces homologous pairing of inserted tandem repeat arrays in somatic nuclei of Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant J. 44(4):531-40.

Rosin FM. Watanabe N. Lam E. (2005) Moonlighting vacuolar protease: multiple jobs for a busy protein. Trends Plant Sci. 10(11):516-8.

Pecinka A. Kato N. Meister A. Probst AV. Schubert I. Lam E. (2005) Tandem repetitive transgenes and fluorescent chromatin tags alter local interphase chromosome arrangement in Arabidopsis thaliana. J Cell Sci. 118(Pt 16):3751-8.

Lam E. (2005) Vacuolar proteases livening up programmed cell death. Trends Cell Biol. 15(3):124-7.

Lo C. Wang N. Lam E. (2005) Inducible double-stranded RNA expression activates reversible transcript turnover and stable translational suppression of a target gene in transgenic tobacco. FEBS Lett. 579(6):1498-502.

Watanabe N. Lam E. (2005) Two Arabidopsis metacaspases AtMCP1b and AtMCP2b are arginine/lysine-specific cysteine proteases and activate apoptosis-like cell death in yeast. J Biol Chem. 280(15):14691-9.

Pontier. D. del Pozo,O and Lam. E. (2004) Cell Death in Plant Disease. in Cell Death in Plants. L.D. Nooden. ed.. Academic Press. pp. 37-50.

Watanabe. N and Lam. E. (2004) Recent advance in the study of caspase-like proteases and Bax inhibitor-1 in plants: their possible roles as regulator of programmed cell death. Molecular Plant Pathology 5:65-70.

Lam. E. (2004) Controlled cell death. plant survival and development. Nature Reviews in Mol. Cell. Biology 5;305-315.

Visualizing Chromosome Structure/Organization" (2004) Lam. E. Kato. N. and Watanabe. K. Annual Review in Plant Biology 55:537-554.

Kato. N and Lam. E. J. (2003) Chromatin of endoreduplicated pavement cells has greater range of movement than that of diploid guard cells in Arabidopsis thaliana. J of Cell Science 116:2195-2201.

del Pozo. O and Lam,E (2003) Expression of the baculovirus p35 protein in tobacco inhibits hypersensitive response cell death and compromises N gene-mediated disease resistance in response to tobacco mosaic virus. Mol. Plant Microbe Interactions 16:485-494.

Pontier. D. Mittler. R and Lam. E (2002) Mechanism of cell death and disease resistance induction by transgenic expression of bacterio-opsin Plant Journal 30:499-509.

Kato. N. Pontier. D and Lam. E (2002) Spectral profiling for the simultaneous observation of four distinct fluorescent proteins and detection of protein-protein interaction via fluorescence resonance energy transfer in tobacco leaf nuclei. Plant Physiology 129:931-942.

Lam. E. Kato. N and Lawton. M (2001) Programmed cell death. mitochondria and the plant hypersensitive response" Nature 411. 848-853.

Pontier. D. Miao. Z-H and Lam. E. (2001) Specific trans-dominant suppression of plant TGA factors reveals complex regulatory functions in plant defense reponses" Plant Journal 27:529-538.

Kato. N and Lam. E (2001) Detection of chromosomes tagged with green fluorescent protein in live Arabidopsis thaliana plants" Genome Biology 2:0045.1-0045.10.