6. febrúar 2008

Fyrirlestur Dr. Torgeir Holen

Mánudaginn 9. febrúar mun Dr. Torgeir Holen halda fyrirlestur sem ber yfirskriftina What do water channels and square arrays do in the brain? Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn í Læknagarði en nánari upplýsingar er að finna hér að neðan.

Dr. Torgeir Holen
Centre for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience
Norwegian Centre of Excellence at the University of Oslo

What do water channels and square arrays do in the brain?

Monday, February 9th at 15:30
Læknagarður, 3rd floor, room 343


The blood vessels in the brain are surrounded by dense, regular structures
calledsquare arrays. Square arrays have been studied by freeze-fracture electron
microscopy since 1968 1968 (Kreutziger, 1968; Rash et al., 1974), but their function
remains unknown.

Since square arrays disappear in Aquaporin-4 knockout-mice (AQP4 KO)
(Verbavatz et al., 1997), and transfection of AQP4 isoforms into cell lines results in a
reconstitution of structures similar to square arrays (Furman et al.,
2003), the water channel AQP4 is a critical component of square arrays. Aquaporin water
channels are well understood with respect to blood plasma filtration and
water re-uptake in the kidneys, but their massive presence in the brain is a
puzzle.

Whereas square arrays have been studied exclusively by freeze fracture EM
for 40 years, we have recently developed biochemical methods to analyze their
structure (Sorbo et al., 2007; Sorbo et al., in press). Using this methodology,
combined with the discovery of 4 new isoforms of AQP4 (Moe et al., in press), and RNA
interference (RNAi) in vivo approaches, we are attempting to understand the elusive
function of aquaporins and square arrays in mammalian brains.


The lecture is open to all will be in English.