Abigail (Abby) Buchwalter
Assistant Professor
Cardiovascular Research Inst
School of Medicine

This work begins with a particular focus on the nuclear lamina, a nuclear structure that is essential for mammalian development and is mutated in ~15 "laminopathy" diseases that afflict the heart, muscle, bone, fat, and nervous system. We focus on three main thematic areas: (i) defining the essential roles that the nuclear lamina plays in nuclear organization, (ii) exploring disruption of nuclear organization as a possible cellular mechanism of aging, and (iii) determining how nuclear organization is maintained or, alternatively, remodeled, over time. We use cell biology, biochemistry, and systems biology to answer these questions.

• Long lifetime and tissue-specific accumulation of lamin A/C in Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.
  The Journal of cell biology 2023 Hasper J, Welle K, Swovick K, Hryhorenko J, Ghaemmaghami S, Buchwalter A
• Modeling the consequences of age-linked rDNA hypermethylation with dCas9-directed DNA methylation in human cells.
  bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2023 Blokhina Y, Buchwalter A
• Intermediate, but not average: The unusual lives of the nuclear lamin proteins.
  Current opinion in cell biology 2023 Buchwalter A
• Long lifetime and selective accumulation of the A-type lamins accounts for the tissue specificity of Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.
  bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2023 Hasper J, Welle K, Swovick K, Hryhorenko J, Ghaemmaghami S, Buchwalter A
• Turnover and replication analysis by isotope labeling (TRAIL) reveals the influence of tissue context on protein and organelle lifetimes.
  Molecular systems biology 2023 Hasper J, Welle K, Hryhorenko J, Ghaemmaghami S, Buchwalter A
• Moving fast and breaking things: Incidence and repair of DNA damage within ribosomal DNA repeats.
  Mutation research 2020 Blokhina YP, Buchwalter A
• Selective clearance of the inner nuclear membrane protein emerin by vesicular transport during ER stress.
  eLife 2019 Buchwalter A, Schulte R, Tsai H, Capitanio J, Hetzer M
• Access of torsinA to the inner nuclear membrane is activity dependent and regulated in the endoplasmic reticulum.
  Journal of cell science 2015 Goodchild RE, Buchwalter AL, Naismith TV, Holbrook K, Billion K, Dauer WT, Liang CC, Dear ML, Hanson PI
• Nuclear pores set the speed limit for mitosis.
  Cell 2014 Buchwalter A, Hetzer MW
• Static retention of the lumenal monotopic membrane protein torsinA in the endoplasmic reticulum.
  The EMBO journal 2011 Vander Heyden AB, Naismith TV, Snapp EL, Hanson PI
• Expression of VACM-1/cul5 mutant in endothelial cells induces MAPK phosphorylation and maspin degradation and converts cells to the angiogenic phenotype.
  Microvascular research 2007 Buchwalter A, Van Dort C, Schultz S, Smith R, Le IP, Abbott JL, Oosterhouse E, Johnson AE, Hansen-Smith F, Burnatowska-Hledin M
• Estrogen-dependent growth and estrogen receptor (ER)-alpha concentration in T47D breast cancer cells are inhibited by VACM-1, a cul 5 gene.
  Molecular and cellular biochemistry 2006 Johnson AE, Le IP, Buchwalter A, Burnatowska-Hledin MA
• R7BP augments the function of RGS7*Gbeta5 complexes by a plasma membrane-targeting mechanism.
  The Journal of biological chemistry 2006 Drenan RM, Doupnik CA, Jayaraman M, Buchwalter AL, Kaltenbronn KM, Huettner JE, Linder ME, Blumer KJ