Dominique Alfandari

Hélène Cousin, Co-Investigator

Craniofacial Development

The Alfandari lab studies how the face of vertebrate embryos is built. The main source of cells for this process are the Cranial Neural Crest Cells (CNC), which are induced at the border of the neural plate (Future brain and spinal chord) and move ventrally to produce the bones, cartilage, muscles and ganglia of the face. 

Happening now:

Dr, Ankit Pandey graduated in August with his PhD. His work focused on two major aspects of the lab. First, how do non proteolytic ADAM contribute to early embryogenesis; this lead to a great publication in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.

ADAM11 a novel regulator of Wnt and BMP4 signaling in neural crest and cancer.

Pandey A, Cousin H, Horr B, Alfandari D.Front Cell Dev Biol. 2023 Sep 12;11:1271178. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2023.1271178. eCollection 2023.PMID: 37766964 Free PMC article.

The second project that is currently submitted continues to investigate the mechanism by which Adam13 regulates gene expression. Dr. Pandey found that Adam13 regulates Histone modifications resulting in changes in chromatin availability and transcription factor binding. He also showed that these affect both gene expression and splicing in the Cranial Neural crest cells.

ADAM interact with large protein complexes to regulate Histone modification, gene expression and splicing.

Pandey A, Cousin H, Kumar S, Taylor L, Chander A, Coppenrath K, Shaidani NI, Horb M, Alfandari D.bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2024 Aug 19:2024.08.18.608474. doi: 10.1101/2024.08.18.608474.PMID: 39229132 Free PMC article. Preprint.

While our current funding is finished, we have submitted a new project to produce additional monoclonal antibodies to Xenopus, Axolotl and Mouse proteins.