Simon J. Rhodes, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Office:
(317) 278-1797
Email:
srhodes@iupui.edu
Our laboratory investigates how key
regulatory genes direct the determination and differentiation of individual
endocrine cell lineages of the brain and pituitary during vertebrate
development. For example, the anterior pituitary gland presents a valuable model
system to pursue these studies. The mature gland contains five discrete cell
types that are each characterized by the secretion of specific polypeptide
hormones critical for growth, sexual function, lactation, thyroid activity,
adrenal physiology and homeostasis. We use both molecular/ in vitro and
transgenic animal approaches to examine the roles of several classes of
transcription factors in specification of pituitary cell phenotypes. Our
research goals include:
1. Characterization of the basic biology/biochemistry of endocrine transcription
factors.
2. Investigation of the molecular nature of human pituitary diseases, such as
pituitary tumors and growth disorders in children, in collaboration with faculty
at Riley Children's Hospital.
3. The analysis of the gene regulatory pathways that control growth, metabolism,
and reproductive fitness in agricultural species, in collaboration with the U.S.
Meat Animal Research Center.
Other projects in the lab include investigation of bone transcription factors in
collaboration with Dr. Joseph Bidwell of the Indiana University School of
Medicine at IUPUI, and molecular studies of nervous system regeneration in
amphibians in collaboration with Dr. Ellen Chernoff of the IUPUI Biology
Department.
Recent Publications:
Walvoord, E.C., Sloop, K.W., Dwyer, C.J., Rhodes, S.J., and Pescovitz, O.H.
(2003). Severe short stature and endogenous growth hormone resistance in twin
brothers without growth hormone gene mutations. Endocrine, In press.
Tran, P., Savage, J.J., Ingraham, H.A., and Rhodes, S.J. (2003). Molecular
genetics of hypothalamic-pituitary axis development. Pediatric Endocrinology:
Mechanisms, Manifestations and Management, In press.
Savage, J.J., Yaden, B.C., Kiratipranon P., and Rhodes, S.J. (2003).
Transcriptional control during mammalian anterior pituitary development. Gene,
In press.
Alvarez, M., Rhodes, S.J., and Bidwell, J.P. (2003). Context-dependent
transcription: all politics is local. Gene 313, 43-57.
Palakal, M., Stephens, M., Mukhopadhyay, S., Raje. R., and Rhodes, S.J. (2003).
Identification of biological relationships from text documents using efficient
computational methods. J. Bioinformatics and Computational Biology 1, 1-34.
Freking, B.A., Murphy, S., Wylie, A., Jirtle, R.L., Rhodes, S.J., Keele, J.W.,
Leymaster, K.A., and Smith, T.P.L. (2002). Identification of the single base
change causing the callipyge muscle hypertrophy phenotype, the only known
example of polar overdominance in mammals. Genome Res. 12, 1496-1506.