Catherine Schrankel

Catherine Schrankel
University of California, San Diego | UCSD · Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO)

PhD, Immunology

About

40
Publications
18,161
Reads
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865
Citations
Introduction
I am broadly interested in how animals protect themselves from the environment. In my PhD, I characterized immune cells and their gene regulatory networks in the sea urchin. As a Postdoc, I work on ABC transporters. I'm studying the roles of these membrane proteins in the protection and function of two cell types: 1) The gut epithelia, and their interactions with commensal or pathogenic microbes. 2) The primordial germ line, the stem cells for egg and sperm. I am funded by the NIH.
Additional affiliations
May 2017 - present
University of California, San Diego
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Description
  • I'm interested in cellular defense systems, specifically those afforded by ABC Transporters--a class of proteins that actively export a variety of compounds, including xenobiotic compounds and endogenous signaling molecules, from cells.
September 2010 - April 2017
University of Toronto
Position
  • PhD Student
Description
  • I studied the development of embryonic immunity in the sea urchin embryo. I identified a novel regulatory relationship between E-protein transcription factors during development of the immune system, and characterized markers for larval immunocytes.
May 2008 - August 2010
George Washington University
Position
  • Master's Student
Description
  • As BSc/MSc student, I studied a diverse immune effector protein family, 185/333, now known as Transformer, in the purple sea urchin. I isolated native proteins from adult fluids and characterized protein binding to various species of bacteria.
Education
September 2010 - April 2017
University of Toronto
Field of study
  • Immunology
May 2009 - August 2010
George Washington University
Field of study
  • Biology
September 2005 - May 2009
George Washington University
Field of study
  • Biology

Publications

Publications (40)
Article
Full-text available
Sea urchins are basal deuterostomes that share key molecular components of innate immunity with vertebrates. They are a powerful model for the study of innate immune system evolution and function, especially during early development. Here we characterize the morphology and associated molecular markers of larval immune cell types in a newly develope...
Article
Full-text available
Commensal enteric bacteria have evolved systems that enable growth in the ecologic niche of the host gastrointestinal tract. Animals evolved parallel mechanisms to survive the constant exposure to bacteria and their metabolic by-products. We propose that drug transporters encompass a crucial system to managing the gut microbiome. Drug transporters...
Article
The vertebrate complement cascade is an essential host protection system that functions at the intersection of adaptive and innate immunity. However, it was originally assumed that complement was present only in vertebrates because it was activated by antibodies and functioned with adaptive immunity. Subsequently, the identification of the key comp...
Article
Full-text available
Sea urchins are premier model organisms for the study of early development. However, the lengthy generation times of commonly used species have precluded application of stable genetic approaches. Here, we use the painted sea urchin Lytechinus pictus to address this limitation and to generate a homozygous mutant sea urchin line. L. pictus has one of...
Article
The ABC transporter ABCB1 plays an important role in the disposition of xenobiotics. Embryos of most species express high levels of this transporter in early development as a protective mechanism, but its native substrates are not known. Here we used larvae of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus to characterize the early life expression an...
Article
Directed intercellular movement of diverse small molecules, including metabolites, signal molecules and xenobiotics, is a key feature of multicellularity. Networks of small molecule transporters (SMTs), including several ATP Binding Cassette (ABC) transporters, are central to this process. While small molecule transporters are well described in dif...
Article
A diverse repertoire of xenobiotic transporters from the ABC and SLC families are expressed in clinically relevant cell types. Structural and functional similarity of these transporters’ specificities is known to complicate efforts to perturb them. Given the therapeutic importance of these transporters, it is important to uncover the pathways that...
Article
Xenobiotic transporters are important for the protection of differentiated somatic cells, yet less is known about the role of these proteins in rapidly changing embryonic cells. A surprisingly large number of ABC transporters (80%) are expressed from fertilized egg to gastrulation, but their spatial and temporal patterns of expression during early...
Article
Full-text available
Exposure to and colonization by bacteria during development have wide-ranging beneficial effects on animal biology but can also inhibit growth or cause disease. The immune system is the prime mediator of these microbial interactions and is itself shaped by them. Studies using diverse animal taxa have begun to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the...
Chapter
Full-text available
Single-domain antibodies, also known as nanobodies, are small antigen-binding fragments (~ 15 kDa) that are derived from heavy chain only antibodies present in camelids (V HH , from camels and llamas), and cartilaginous fishes (V NAR , from sharks). Nanobody V-like domains are useful alternatives to conventional antibodies due to their small size,...
Chapter
Full-text available
Correction to: Chapter 13 in: E. L. Cooper (ed.), Advances in Comparative Immunology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76768-0_13
Chapter
Full-text available
The Echinodermata are an ancient phylum of benthic marine invertebrates with a dispersal-stage planktonic larva. These animals have innate immune systems characterized initially by clearance of foreign particles, including microbes, from the body cavity of both larvae and adults, and allograft tissue rejection in adults. Immune responsiveness is me...
Chapter
Sea urchins have been used for more than a century in cell and developmental biology research. The sea urchin is a gamete production powerhouse. Male and female sea urchins are easily induced to shed massive numbers of eggs or sperm. The eggs are mature at release and are fertilized externally simply by mixing egg and sperm. The resulting embryos a...
Article
Full-text available
Immunology and Cell Biology focuses on the general functioning of the immune system in its broadest sense, with a particular emphasis on its cell biology. Areas that are covered include but are not limited to: Cellular immunology, Innate and adaptive immunity, Immune responses to pathogens,Tumour immunology,Immunopathology, Immunotherapy, Immunogen...
Data
Genomic coordinates for the echinoderm IL17 genes. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.23481.022
Data
Sequences of oligonucleotides used for qPCR, RACE, WMISH, and reporter BAC constructs. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.23481.021
Data
SEFIR domain-containing proteins. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.23481.023
Article
Full-text available
IL17 cytokines are central mediators of mammalian immunity. In vertebrates, these factors derive from diverse cellular sources. Sea urchins share a molecular heritage with chordates that includes the IL17 system. Here, we characterize the role of epithelial expression of IL17 in the larval gut-associated immune response. The purple sea urchin genom...
Article
Full-text available
The purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) genome sequence encodes a complex repertoire of genes encoding innate immune recognition proteins and homologs of important vertebrate immune regulatory factors. To characterize how this immune system is deployed within an experimentally tractable, intact animal, we investigate the immune capabi...
Article
Full-text available
Effective protection against pathogens requires the host to produce a wide range of immune effector proteins. The Sp185/333 gene family, which is expressed by the California purple sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus in response to bacterial infection, encodes a highly diverse repertoire of anti-pathogen proteins. A subset of these proteins ca...
Article
Although vertebrate hematopoiesis is the focus of intense study, immunocyte development is well-characterized in only a few invertebrate groups. The sea urchin embryo provides a. morphologically simple model for immune cell development in an organism that is phylogenetically allied to vertebrates. Larval immunocytes, including pigment cells and sev...
Article
Full-text available
The arms race between hosts and pathogens (and other non-self) drives the molecular diversification of immune response genes in the host. Over long periods of evolutionary time, many different defense strategies have been employed by a wide variety of invertebrates. We review here penaeidins and crustins in crustaceans, the allorecognition system e...
Article
Full-text available
A survey for immune genes in the genome for the purple sea urchin has shown that the immune system is complex and sophisticated. By inference, immune responses of all echinoderms maybe similar. The immune system is mediated by several types of coelomocytes that are also useful as sensors of environmental stresses. There are a number of large gene f...

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