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Jeff Hardin

Professor of Zoology

Jeff Hardin
Address:
327 Zoology Research
Telephone:
262-9634
Email:
jdhardin@wisc.edu
Research Fields:
Developmental Genetics
C. elegans

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1987

Postdoctoral Research: Duke University

Research Interests

Morphogenesis and pattern formation during early development in c. elegans

Research Description

Our laboratory focuses on two major questions: (1) How do sheets of cells change shape and move during early embryonic development and (2) What controls those movements? Providing answers to these questions will have important implications for understanding human birth defects and cancer, both of which involve misregulation of these processes. We study the genetics of movements in the embryonic epidermis, or hypodermis, of the nematode, C. elegans. The hypodermis is very simple, and we can visualize cell movements within it at the level of single cells. We have isolated mutants that are defective in two movements that occur in specific regions of the hypodermis: a movement known as convergent extension in dorsal cells, and epiboly, or spreading of the hypodermis, mediated by the ventral cells. We use "4-dimensional" microscopy (collecting multiple focal planes at each time point under computer control), and low-intensity imaging using translational fusions between adherens junction associated proteins and of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) to analyze these mutations at single-cell resolution. We have cloned several of these mutations. One, called hmp-1, encodes an alpha-catenin, involved in cadherin-mediated cell adhesion; another, itr-1, encodes an inositol triphosphate receptor; a third, die-1, is a transcriptional regulator. Our goal is to characterize these and other mutants that affect morphogenesis at both the cellular and molecular levels in order to understand how all embryos change their shape.

Representative Publications

  • Walston, T., Guo, Proenca, R., Wu, M., Herman, M., Hardin, J. and Hedgecock, E. 2006. mig-5/Dsh controls cell fate determination and cell migration in C. elegans. Dev. Biol., in press.
  • Thomas-Virnig, C.L., Sims, P.A., Simske, J.S. and Hardin, J. 2004. The inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor regulates epidermal cell migration in Caenorhabditis elegans. Curr Biol. 14,1882-7.
  • Walston, T., Tuskey, C., Edgar, L., Hawkins, N., Ellis, G., Bowerman, B., Wood, W. and Hardin, J. 2004. Multiple Wnt signaling pathways converge to orient the mitotic spindle in early C. elegans embryos. Dev Cell 7, 831-841.
  • Pettitt, J., Cox, E.A., Broadbent, I.D., Fleet, A. and Hardin, J. 2003. The C. elegans p120 catenin homologue, JAC-1, modulates cadherin-catenin function during epidermal morphogenesis. J. Cell Biol. 162,15-22.
  • Simske, J.S., Köppen, M., Sims, P.A., Hodgkin, J. and Hardin, J.D. 2003. The cell junction protein VAB-9 regulates adhesion and epidermal morphology in C. elegans. Nature Cell Biol. 5:619-625.