Roshanak Irannejad, PhD

Associate Professor, Cardiovascular Research Institute
Research Interests: 
Organelle-based signaling in cardiovascular biology

Research Summary:
Internal membrane compartments as hubs of signaling To function properly, cells and tissue must receive and interpret a large variety of signals. They do so, in part, through signaling receptors, some of which reside on cell surfaces known as plasma membranes. We study adrenergic receptors, which are targets of commonly used medicines including alpha and beta blockers. By developing a new class of sensors that allow for detection and visualization of signaling events in living cells, we made the unexpected finding that signaling cues to cells not only act on cell surface receptors but also on internal cellular compartments. This observation raises numerous questions pertaining to fundamental aspects of cell signaling and suggests that cells have spatially compartmentalized signaling hubs. This basic biological insight has clinical implications as well. For example, certain beta-blockers are known to have differential clinical efficacies but the underlying reasons for these differences are not known. We have found that different beta blockers act on distinct hubs of signaling. Beyond their well-established roles in cardiac physiology, adrenergic receptors regulate a wide variety of important physiologically and behavioral processes. We are using our newly developed tools to investigate the consequences of signaling from internal compartments on a range of cellular, physiological, and behavioral outcomes.

Address: 
555 & 535 Mission Bay Blvd Sou, Rm 352H
UCSF Box 3120
San Francisco, CA 94158
United States
Faculty Type: 
Core CVRI Faculty
Publications: 

Subcellular activation of β-adrenergic receptors using a spatially restricted antagonist.(link is external)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Liccardo F, Morstein J, Lin TY, Pampel J, Lang D, Shokat KM, Irannejad R

cAMP signaling: a remarkably regional affair.(link is external)

Trends in biochemical sciences

Bock A, Irannejad R, Scott JD

Selective activation of intracellular β1AR using a spatially restricted antagonist.(link is external)

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Liccardo F, Morstein J, Lin TY, Pampel J, Shokat KM, Irannejad R

Cardiac contraction and relaxation are regulated by distinct subcellular cAMP pools.(link is external)

Nature chemical biology

Lin TY, Mai QN, Zhang H, Wilson E, Chien HC, Yee SW, Giacomini KM, Olgin JE, Irannejad R

G protein-regulated endocytic trafficking of adenylyl cyclase type 9.(link is external)

eLife

Lazar AM, Irannejad R, Baldwin TA, Sundaram AB, Gutkind JS, Inoue A, Dessauer CW, Von Zastrow M

Unraveling the functional role of the orphan solute carrier, SLC22A24 in the transport of steroid conjugates through metabolomic and genome-wide association studies.(link is external)

PLoS genetics

Yee SW, Stecula A, Chien HC, Zou L, Feofanova EV, van Borselen M, Cheung KWK, Yousri NA, Suhre K, Kinchen JM, Boerwinkle E, Irannejad R, Yu B, Giacomini KM

Genetically Encoding Quinoline Reverses Chromophore Charge and Enables Fluorescent Protein Brightening in Acidic Vesicles.(link is external)

Journal of the American Chemical Society

Fu C, Kobayashi T, Wang N, Hoppmann C, Yang B, Irannejad R, Wang L

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