Education & Training
- Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 1984
- B.S. in Chemistry from Boise University, Boise, ID, 1979
Research Interest Summary
Research Categories
Research Interests
We investigate signaling pathways that integrate membrane traffic with the regulation of homeostasis and the onset of disease, including cancer and obesity. Our studies are grounded by our discovery of the PACS family of multi-functional sorting proteins. Currently, we are investigating how the PACS proteins integrate membrane traffic, interorganellar communication and autophagy in healthy cells with key steps in the regulation of p53 transcriptional programs and death ligand-induced apoptosis in cancer cells.
Representative Publications
Atkins KM, Thomas LL, Barroso J, Thomas L, Auclair, S, Yin J, Kang H, Chung JH, Dikeakos JD, Thomas G. (2014) The multi-functional sorting protein PACS-2 regulates SIRT1-mediated deacetylation of p53 to modulate p21-dependent cell cycle arrest Cell Reports (in press).
Dikeakos JD, Thomas L, Kwon G, Shinde U, Thomas G. (2012) An interdomain binding site on HIV-1 Nef interacts with PACS-1 and PACS-2 on endosomes to downregulate MHC-I Mol. Biol. Cell 23:2184-2197.
Dikeakos JD, Atkins KM, Thomas L, Wortman MD, Byeon IL, Jung J, Emert-Sedlak L, Kukull B, Saito H, Koizumi H, Williamson DM, Hiyoshi M, Barklis E, Takiguchi M, Suzu S, Gronenborn AM, Smithgall TE, Thomas G. (2010) Small Molecule Inhibition of HIV-1-induced MHC-I downregulation identifies a temporally regulated switch in Nef action. Mol. Biol. Cell 21:3279-3292
Aslan JE, You H, Williamson DM, Endig J, Youker RT, Thomas L, Shu H, Du Y, Milewski RL, Brush MB, Possemato A, Sprott K, Fu H, Greis KD, Runckel DN, Vogel A, Thomas G (2009) Akt and14-3-3 control a PACS-2 homeostatic switch that integrates membrane traffic with TRAIL-induced apoptosis. Mol. Cell 34:497-509.
Hung CH, Thomas L, Ruby CE, Atkins KE, Morris MP, Knight ZA, Scholz I, Barklis E, Weinberg AD, Shokat KM, Thomas G. (2007) HIV-1 Nef assembles a novel Src family kinase—ZAP-70/Syk—PI3K cascade to downregulate cell surface MHC-I. Cell Host & Microbe 1:121-133.
Jiao GH, Cregar L, Wang J, Millis SZ, Tang C, O’Malley S, Johnson AT, Sareth, S, Larson JA, Thomas G. (2006) Synthetic small molecule furin inhibitors derived from 2,5-dideoxystreptamine. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 281:16108-16116.
Simmen T, Aslan JE, Blagoveshchenskaya AD, Thomas L, Wan L, Xiang Y, Feliciangeli SF, Hung CH, Crump CM, Thomas, G. (2005) PACS-2 Controls ER-Mitochondria Communication and Bid-mediated Apoptosis. EMBO J 24:717-729.