{"id":218,"date":"2018-05-23T14:48:29","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T14:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/our-research\/"},"modified":"2018-05-23T15:50:58","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T15:50:58","slug":"our-research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/our-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-30\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-dev.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-web\/lab-wpcontent\/sites\/19\/2018\/05\/22193146\/MafAIns-200x203.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"203\" \/>The \u03b2-cells of the pancreatic islets are solely responsible for the production and secretion of insulin, a peptide hormone that is a fundamental regulator of glucose homeostasis.\u00a0The loss of \u03b2-cell function results in the development of\u00a0diabetes mellitus, a disease that represents a significant health problem in the United States and, increasingly,\u00a0throughout the world.<\/p>\n<p>The Stein Lab research program focuses on the role of transcription factors in \u03b2-cell development, function, and disease. Our research bridges the areas of biochemistry, tissue culture research, and animal models. A few of the transcription factors actively studied in our lab are Pdx1, MafA, and MafB. Pdx1 has a broad expression pattern, and is responsible for pancreas formation. MafB and MafA have a much more restricted expression pattern. During development in the mouse, MafB is present in both insulin+\u00a0and glucagon+\u00a0cells. However, after birth, MafB expression becomes restricted to glucagon+\u00a0cells. Meanwhile, MafA is expressed during the secondary transition, when the islet greatly expands its B-cell population. MafA is ONLY expressed in insulin+\u00a0cells, and remains there throughout adulthood in the mouse.<\/p>\n<p>Our research seeks to address two main questions: Which transcription factors are responsible for \u03b2-cell development, and what is the mechanism of their action? We use biochemical assays such as protein purification, Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assay (EMSA), Immunoprecipitation (IP),\u00a0in vitro\u00a0kinase assays, and Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) to characterize and identify these transcription factors. We also study the effects of the absence of these transcription factors, or mutated forms of them, using the human\u00a0\u03b2-cell lines EndoC\u03b2H1 and EndoC\u03b2H2 and the\u00a0mouse \u03b2-cell lines\u00a0\u03b2TC-3, Min6, and INS-1. In addition, we frequently use mice to study the\u00a0in vivo\u00a0roles of these transcription factors, as well as their roles in disease states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u03b2-cells of the pancreatic islets are solely responsible for the production and secretion of insulin, a peptide hormone that is a fundamental regulator of glucose homeostasis.\u00a0The loss of \u03b2-cell function results in the development of\u00a0diabetes mellitus, a disease that represents a significant health problem in the United States and, increasingly,\u00a0throughout the world. The Stein&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235,"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/218\/revisions\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lab.dev.vanderbilt.edu\/roland-stein-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}