Affiliate Professor
Year Started at JMU: 2019
john32cm@jmu.edu
Contact Info
Research Description
Hairy/Enhancer of Split (HES) proteins are highly conserved transcription repressors, with critical roles in cell specification and proliferation. Mutations in genes encoding HES proteins are linked to breast, prostate, and colon cancers. HES proteins mediate transcription through interactions with other transcription factors or with co-activators, co-repressors, chromatin modifiers, and the transcriptional machinery. Our research objective is to understand the molecular mechanisms by which HES proteins mediate transcriptional repression during embryogenesis and to use that information to test predictions of HES mediated repression genome-wide and across developmental stages in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.
Education
- PhD in Molecular Genetics, 1996, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
- BS in Biology, 1989, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD
Select Publications
- Bowles SN, Johnson CM. 2021. Inferences of glia-mediated control in Caenorhabditis elegans. J Neurosci Res. 99(5):1191–1206
- Chou HT., *Gomez Vazquez R., *Wang K., Campbell R., Walthall WW., and CM. Johnson. 2015. HES-mediated repression of Pten in C. elegans. G3 (Bethesda) 5(12):2619-2628. PMID: 26438299.
- Felton CM., and CM. Johnson. 2014. Dopamine signaling in C. elegans is mediated in part by the HLH-17 dependent regulation of extracellular dopamine levels. G3 (Bethesda) 4(6):1081-9. PMID: 24709946.
*indicates undergraduate student researcher
