Biochemistry Department - Primary Faculty
Primary Faculty
Yu-Chung Yang, Ph.D.
Professor
Education
- Ph.D.: Northwestern University School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
- Postdoc: NIH, Bethesda, MD
Research Interests
Dr. Yang and her former colleagues at Genetics Institute were responsible for the cloning of three cytokines: human interleukin (IL)-3, -9 and -11. FDA approved IL-11 in 1997 for treating cancer patients with severe chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia. It is the first thrombopoietic agent to be approved for clinical use in the United States. It is anticipated that understanding the molecular basis of cytokine signal transduction and cellular responses may lead to new modalities of treatment for various diseases including cancer. Recent work has focused on biochemical and functional aspects of several transcription factors and transcription cofactors discovered while studying cytokine signal transduction. The laboratory cloned Cited2 in 1998 and showed that Cited2 is induced by many biological stimuli including cytokines and it is a transforming gene when overexpressed. They generated Cited2 knockout mice and showed that deletion of Cited2 causes Cited2-/- embryos to die at mid-gestation with many developmental defects. Since ectopic activation of the signaling pathways that control normal development and homeostasis could lead to hyperproliferative conditions, such as cancer, studies are now underway to generate tissue-specific knockout mouse models to study the role of Cited2 in normal and stressed physiological conditions and their dysregulation in disease processes including cancer.
Selected References
- Chen Y, Doughman Y-Q, Gu S, Jarrell A, Aota S, Cvekl A, Watanabe M, Dunwoodie SL, Johnson RS, van Heyningen V, Kleinjan DA, Beebe DC and Yang Y-C.
“Cited2 is required for the proper formation of the hyaloid vasculature and lens morphogenesis.”
Development 135:2939-48 (2008) - Qu X., Lam E., Doughman Y-Q, Chen Y., Chou Y-T, Lam M, Turakhia M, Dunwoodie SL, Watanabe M, Xu B, Duncan SA, Yang Y-C.
“Cited2, a novel coactivator for HNF4α, is essential for liver development.”
EMBO J. 26(21):4445-56 (2007) - Chen Y, Haviernik P, Bunting KD, and Yang, Y-C.
“Cited2 is required for normal hematopoiesis in the murine fetal liver.”
Blood 110: 2889-98 (2007) - Xu B, Doughman Y-Q, Turakhia M, Jiang W, Landsettle C, Agani F, Semenza GL, Watanabe, M., and Yang, Y-C.
“Partial rescue of defects in Cited2-deficient embryos by HIF-1a heterozygosity.”
Dev. Biol. 301:130-40 (2007) - Chou Y-T, Wang H, Chen Y, Danielpour D and Yang Y-C.
“Cited2 modulates TGF-b mediated up-regulation of MMP9.”
Oncogene 25, 5547-60 (2006). Featured article for the issue. - Zheng G and Yang Y-C
“Sumoylation and acetylation play opposite roles in transactivation of PLAG1 and PLAGL2.”
J. Biol. Chem. 280:40773-40781 (2005)
