Department of Internal Medicine
Cardiovascular Division
Research Opportunities

 

Amy Tucker, MD
Adenosine-induced Mechanisms of Angiogenesis, Cellular Proliferation, and Tissue Protection in the Cardiovascular System 

Adenosine modulates a number of important functions in cardiovascular physiology. In addition to its well-known antiarrhythmic properties, adenosine is also a mediator in coronary vasodilation, ischemic preconditioning, angiogenesis, and cellular proliferation. My laboratory studies the pharmacologic and signal transduction properties of adenosine receptors using combined pharmacologic and molecular biology techniques including chimeric receptor DNA construction, expression in mammalian tissue culture cells, radioligand binding assays, and cAMP second messenger assays.

We also study the properties of compounds that act as enhancers of adenosine actions at the A1 receptor. This receptor, in addition to having antiarrhythmic properties, is probably involved in protection of brain and heart tissues during ischemia. Drugs that would augment the tissue-sparing effects of adenosine during ischemia could be very important therapeutically. We use a chicken chorioallantoic membrane model for investigations into the pharmacology and cellular mechanisms of adenosine-induced angiogenesis and are using yeast two-hybrid cloning and tissue culture techniques to study the role of adenosine in cellular proliferation.

My laboratory is also using sophisticated genetic techniques to engineer a knockout mouse involving the deletion of a small channel, the phosphorylation of which is modulated by adenosine. The channel is postulated to be important in cell volume regulation, cellular proliferation, and cardiac contractility.