Maurice Kernan, PhD
We use Drosophila to study the mechanical senses: touch, sound and proprioception, particularly how they evolved in the insects. Projects in the lab integrate molecular genetics, structural biology, sensory electrophysiology, comparative genomics, and are open to student researchers at all levels.
Our current focus is a TRPN mechanotransducer channel (NompC), and how alternative splicing switches the channel pore to produce fast-adapting or slow-adapting mechanoreceptor currents. Novel splice reporter transgenes reveal that the different channel isoforms are exclusively expressed in specific sensory neurons with phasic versus tonic response properties: we want to find out how this splice is regulated with such specificity. Switchable pore domains also occur in the voltage- and calcium-activated channel genes that encode receptor potentials as action potential streams: we are pursuing the idea that all of these genes are coordinately regulated by alternative splicing to shape neural excitability and sensory response.
Alternative TRPN pore cassettes arose multiple times, early in insect evolution. Most insects use mechanosensory signalling to attract and identify mates of the same species; we think this early TRPN channel diversification could have sharpened courtship signal discrimination, triggering rapid speciation to produce the species hyperdiversity for which the insects are renowned.
Associate Professor
maurice.kernan@stonybrook.edu
Centers for Molecular Medicine (CMM)
Room 447
Office: (631) 632-9964
Lab: (631) 632-9182
Fax: (631) 632-6661