Widener

Dr. Alexis Nagengast

Assistant Professor

e-mail: nagengast@pop1.science.widener.edu

web page: www.science.widener.edu/~nagengast

office location: Kirkbride 469A
office phone: (610) 499-4020
fax: (610) 499-4496 

B.S. Duquesne University
Ph.D, Case Western Reserve University

Courses Taught: General Organic and Biochemistry, General Organic and Biochemistry Lab, Biochemistry Seminar, Biochemistry I,

Research Interest:  Work in my lab explores the earliest and most critical steps of splicing regulation, when intron and exon borders of pre-mRNA are first recognized and defined by a large biomolecular machine called the spliceosome. With over 70% of human genes predicted to be alternatively spliced, many human diseases have been attributed to mutations in splice site selection signals or the splicing machinery itself. Although over 200 proteins associated with the spliceosome have been identified, little is known about how this complex group of proteins orchestrates its social network to come together and function with one another in a living organism. Currently, our understanding of splicing regulation remains rudimentary, as experiments are often limited to restricted conditions in vitro that do not fully reflect the intricate nature of splicing. However, the testes of Drosophila melanogaster provides an ideal model system to examine splicing regulation in vivo as the male germ line is dispensable for viability and susceptible to a wide spectrum of genetic manipulations and biochemical analysis. Using this system, current projects in my lab include: 1) purifying splicing complexes by immunoprecipitation in both mutant and wild type testes to understand essential protein-protein interactions; 2) determining the requirement of early splicing factors in the testes by generating and testing RNAi constructs and 3) developing an RT-PCR assay on testes specific transcripts to address the nature of splicing misregulation, whether it be exon inclusion or skipping. These projects take a unique and novel approach to examine the role of early splicing factors and will greatly enhance the understanding of splicing within the framework of a living organism.