Description:

The Department of Pharmacology is pleased to welcome Dr. Mark Dell'Acqua, PhD, Professor and Vice-Chair, Department of Pharmacology, The University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine.

The following, is an overview of this seminar, as described by Dr. DellAcqua:

The Dell’Acqua laboratory studies receptor-second messenger and kinase/phosphatase signaling in the nervous system. In particular, we study the role of A-kinase anchoring protein (AKAP) 79/150 anchoring of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) and the Ca2+-dependent protein phosphatase 2B-calcineurin (CaN) in regulating signaling by neuronal L-type voltage gated calcium channels and AMPA and NMDA glutamate receptors during excitatory synaptic plasticity. We seek to understand how PKA and CaN in these signaling complexes rapidly control AMPA receptor and L-channel phosphorylation, activity, trafficking, and signaling to the nucleus during hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD). We are investigating these processes during normal synaptic plasticity underlying learning and memory as well as in the context of plasticity alterations and cognitive impairments found in neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease. We employ a variety of experimental approaches to study the assembly of AKAP signaling complexes, their localization in cells, and their functional control of ion channel currents, receptor trafficking, and learning and memory. These techniques range from advanced quantitative fluorescence imaging methods to synaptic and ion channel electrophysiology to neurobehavioral analyses of AKAP mutant mice that are selectively deficient in PKA or CaN anchoring