Senior Scientist

Gene Technology

Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Budapest, Hungary)

My research is mainly focused on the expression regulation of the mouse GAD during development , in which I have worked in close collaboration with Dr. Gabor Szabo (Institute of Exp. Medicine), Dr. Gabriella Szekerkova and Prof. Enrico Mugnaini (NWU). We have described a unique post-transcriptional regulation of the GAD67 gene, which allows the synthesis of different proteins from bicistronic mRNAs by a coupled-translation. I have studied the embryonic and lately the postnatal expression of all four GAD forms. These studies clearly show that different combinations of GAD forms, GABA receptors and transporters correlate with specific differentiation stages like proliferation, migration and terminal differentiation indicating their specific roles in these processes. We have recently expanded these studies in transgenic mouse models over-expressing different GAD forms. These studies also involved GAD65/67 KO mice and showed that the GAD forms have overlapping as well as specific roles within the GABAergic cells and that different sets of downstream components (GABA receptors, transporter, etc,) segregate along different GAD forms.
We have also recently finished a study on the expression and functionality of the GABA signaling in undifferentiated mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells and during different stages of neuronal differentiation of ES cell (submitted).
The distribution of different GAD forms in the developing olfactory system was also a recent project, which is under preparation for publication currently. Here too, we find a spatial-temporal segregation of the four GAD forms and disrupted migratory pattern in the KO animals.
Finally, our group is involved in the generation of transgenic mice expressing different markers in the GABAergic system under regulation from GAD65 and GAD67 promoters. These have served well the Neuroscience community through many years now.