Raafat Elmaghrabi

Enzyme regulation; hormonal control of metabolism.

Research in my laboratory deals with two facets of metabolic regulation of gene expression. First, delineating the factors involved in regulating expression of 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase genes; the products of these genes are responsible for modulating rates of glycolysis in almost all cell types. For example a novel form of the enzyme is over expressed in brain tumor cell lines, and we are investigating what factors are responsible for the activation of the gene. The studies involve mapping of the regulatory regions of the genes with respect to transcription factor and hormonal binding sites. A second interest of the lab deals with the structure/function relationships of the products of these genes, the enzymes themselves, with respect to reciprocal regulation of the two opposing activities by phosphorylation, and the interaction of the two domains. These studies involve expression of wild type and mutated forms of the enzyme using bacterial expression systems and kinetic and structural analysis of the various forms.