SOM Faculty Profile : Austin Yang

Austin Yang

Austin Yang Ph.D.

Academic Title: Associate Professor

Primary Appointment: Anatomy and Neurobiology

ayang@som.umaryland.edu

Location: BRB, 7-033

Phone: (410) 328-7588

Research Interests

The primary interest of my laboratory is to understand the molecular and biochemical events leading to pathological aging and the early development of cancer. Traditionally, single proteins have commonly been chosen to study a variety of biological problems, but proteins cannot function alone and their physiological and biochemical properties are completely dependent on their interactions with other molecules. As a result, my laboratory recently has decided to study the function and integration of the entire biochemical circuitry that modulates the progression of aging and cancer using a series of newly developed mass spectrometric and proteomic technologies to address the following areas:

1. Analyzing changes in protein expression of the whole proteome or in particular subcellular compartments during the initial stages of cancer and pathological aging.

2. Elucidating the protein-protein interaction pathways that are involved in altering cancer cell signaling and cellular aging.

3. Identifying the alteration of protein structure and post-translational modifications that lead to the dysregulation of signaling modules during the course of aging and early cancer development.

Lab Techniques and Equipment

1. Mass Spectrometry (post-translational modifications and large-scale shotgun proteomics) 2. Analysis of marcromolecular complexes by stable isotope labeling and cross-linking.
2. Capillary and multiple dimensional nano-HPLC 3. Free flow electrophoresis (Isoelectric focusing and zone electrophoresis 4.Bioinformatics (software development for database search and quantitative proteomic analyses)

Publications

Soreghan, B, Thomas, SN, Hsu, J and Yang, AJ. High throughput proteomic-based identification of oxidatively induced protein carbonylation in mouse brain. (2003) Pharmaceutical Research 20(11):1713-20.

Schiewe, AJ, Margol, L, Soreghan, B, Thomas, SN. and Yang, AJ. Rapid Characterization of Amyloid-ÃY Side Chain Oxidation by Tandem Mass Spectrometry and the Scoring Algorithm for Spectral Analysis. (2004) Pharmaceutical Research 21 (7) 1094-1102.

Carter, TL. Verdile, G, Groth, D, Bogush, A., Thomas, S, Shen, P, Fraser, PE, Mathews, P, Nixon, NA, Ehrlich, ME, Kwok, JB, St George-Hyslop, P, Schofield, P, Li, Y. Yang, AJ, Martins, RN. and Gandy, SE. Alzheimer Amyloid Precursor Aspartyl Proteinase Activity in CHAPSO Homogenates of Spodoptera frugiperda cells. (2005) Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders 18(4):261-3.

Thomas, SN, Soreghan, BA, Head, E, and Yang, AJ. Reduced expression of synaptic transmission modulator HNK-1/ Neural Cell Adhesion Molecule (NCAM) as a consequence of amyloid beta-mediated oxidative stress: a proteomic approach. (2005) Journal of Neurochemistry 92 (4): 705-17

Thomas, SN, Soreghan, B, Duff, K, and Yang, AJ. Proteomic and network component analysis of PS1/APP mouse model of Alzheimerâ?Ts disease. (2005) Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 8(3)227-41 6. Wan Y, Yang A and Chen T. PepHMM: A hidden Markov model based scoring function for mass spectrometry database search. (2006) Journal of Analytical Chemistry 78(2):432-7.

Thomas, SN, Lu B, Nikolskaya, T, Yuri N, and Yang, AJ. MudPIT (Multidimensional Protein Identification Technology) for identification of post-translational protein modifications in complex biological mixtures. In Redox proteomics: from protein modifications to cellular dysfunction and diseases. (2006) Wiley Inter Science.

Lesne, S, Koh, MT, Kotilinek, L, Kayed, R, Glabe, CG, Yang, AJ, Gallagher, M and Ashe, KH. A specific amyloid-beta protein assembly in the brain impairs memory. (2006) Nature 440 (8082):352-7.

Cripps, D, Thomas, SN, Davies, P and Yang, AJ. Alzheimer's-disease-specific conformation of hyperphosphorylated phf-tau is polyubiquitinated through lys-48, lys-11, and lys-6 ubiquitin conjugation. Journal of Biological Chemistry (2006) 281(16):10825-38.

Lee, YK, Thomas, SN, Yang, AJ and Ann, DK. Doxorubicin downregulates KAP1 SUMOylation that relieves its transcription repression on p21WAF1/CIP1 in breast cancer MCF-7 cells. (2007) Journal of Biological Chemistry. 282(3):1595-606.

Ovodenko, B, Rostango, A, Neurbert, TA, Shetty, V, Thomas, S, Yang, A, Liebemann, J, Ghiso, Jorge, Ritch, R. Proteomic analysis of exfloliation deposits. (2007) Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science 48(4):1447-57.

Tekirian, TL, Thomas, SN and Yang AJ. Advancing signaling networking through proteomics. Expert Review of Proteomics (2007); (4):573-83

Jaje J, Wolcott HN, Fadugba, O, Cripps D, Yang AJ, Mather IH and Thorpe C. A flavin-dependent sulfhydryl oxidase in bovine milk. (2007); Biochemistry. 2007 Oct 18.

Miller, JH, Jin, S, Morgan, W, Yang AJ, Wan,Y Peters, JS and Springer DL. Profiling mitochondrial proteins in radiation-Induced genome-unstable cell lines by mass spectrometry. (2008) Radiation Research 2008 Jun;169(6):700-6

Thomas SN, Cripps D, and Yang AJ. Proteomic analysis of protein phosphorylation and ubiquitination in Alzheimer's disease. (2008) Neuroproteomics. in press.

Wan, Y, Cripps, D, Thomas S, Campbell, P, Ambulos, N, Chen, T, and Yang AJ. PhosphoScan: A probability-based method for phosphorylation site prediction using MS2/MS3 pair information. (2008) Journal of Proteomics Research 2008 July; 7(7):2803-11.

Vijayakumar S, Dziegielewska B, Levin DS, Song W, Yin J, Yang A, Matsumoto Y, Bermudez VP, Hurwitz J, Tomkinson AE. Phosphorylation of Human DNA Ligase I Regulates its Interaction with Replication Factor C and its Participation in DNA Replication and DNA Repair. (2009) Mol Cell Biol. 2009 Feb 17. [Epub ahead of print]

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