Mark Von Zastrow,
M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology

Contact Information:
mark.vonzastrow@ucsf.edu
Tel: 476-7855/476-7871
Fax: 514-0169
Genentech Hall
Room N-212E
Box 2140

Links:
lab website
Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction
PIBS

Publications

Membrane trafficking of signal-transducing receptors

Our laboratory is studying how various signal-transducing receptors and receptor-interacting proteins are regulated by membrane trafficking. A main focus of our present work is on regulated endocytosis of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), particularly catecholamine receptors and opioid peptide receptors.

Recently we have begun to study the membrane trafficking of a different class of signaling receptor, the ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs), focusing on AMPA-type glutamate receptors. Rapid endocytosis of GPCRs can be induced by native ligands and certain clinically important drugs. This process plays multiple roles in regulating signal transduction and may be required for receptor signaling via certain downstream pathways. Endocytosis of AMPA receptors is induced by exogenous agonists as well as by endogenously released glutamate. This process contributes to long-term depression defined electrophysiologically at excitatory synapses in CNS neurons. Biochemical and immunocytochemical methods are used to measure receptor endocytosis and study the sorting of receptors after endocytosis.

Molecular biological methods are used to define receptor domains and candidate receptor-interacting proteins that mediate defined mechanisms of receptor trafficking. Assays of signal transduction applied to neuronal preparations, single cells, and isolated cellular membranes are used to examine the effects of membrane trafficking mechanisms on functional signal transduction.