Andrea Ladd, Ph.D.

Assistant Staff

Department of Cell Biology
Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Curriculum Vitae

Research:
Pre-mRNA alternative splicing regulation
in vertebrate heart and muscle

The goal of research in our laboratory is to understand the role of pre-mRNA alternative splicing regulatory programs in controlling gene expression and ultimately, cell fate and function, during development. Developmentally regulated alternative splicing has been described individually for many genes, yet little is currently known about global changes in alternative splicing that occur during development, to what extent these changes are coordinated, what regulatory factors drive these changes, and most importantly, what the consequences of these changes are for the developing organism. Our laboratory uses a combination of molecular biology and embryology approaches to tackle these questions. The focus of our research is the role of alternative splicing regulatory programs in developing heart and skeletal muscle.

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Selected Publications

Ladd, A.N., G. Taffet, C. Hartley, D. Kearney, and T.A. Cooper. (2005)
Cardiac-specific repression of CELF activity disrupts alternative splicing and causes cardiomyopathy.
Mol. Cell. Biol. 25: 6267-6278.

Ladd, A.N., M.G. Stenberg, M.S. Swanson, and T.A. Cooper. (2005)
A dynamic balance between activation and repression regulates pre-mRNA alternative splicing during heart development.
Dev. Dyn. 233(3): 783-793.

Ladd, A.N., N.H. Nguyen, K. Malhotra, and T.A. Cooper. (2004)
CELF6, a Member of the CELF Family of RNA Binding Proteins, Regulates Muscle-specific Splicing Enhancer-dependent Alternative Splicing.
J. Biol. Chem. 279(17): 17756-17764.

Ladd, A.N., N. Charlet-B., and T.A. Cooper. (2001)
The CELF family of RNA binding proteins is implicated in cell-specific and developmentally regulated alternative splicing.
Mol. Cell. Biol. 21(4): 1285-1296.