Erica Hutchins, PhD
Assistant Professor
Cell and Tissue Biology
School of Dentistry
The Hutchins Lab seeks to map how post-transcriptional regulation controls developmental pluripotency and cell fate decisions in vivo, using vertebrate neural crest as a model.
Show full bio (190 words) Hide full bio
Neural crest cells are an essential stem cell population in the vertebrate embryo. During development, these cells must undergo coordinated induction, specification, and epithelial—mesenchymal transition (EMT) events to migrate and ultimately develop into a wide range of cell types that contribute to the adult organism.
Dysregulated post-transcriptional regulatory linkages in neural crest can lead to congenital malformations and cancer in humans, and a thorough understanding of the mechanisms underlying these fundamental processes can provide new therapeutic targets for biomedical intervention.
By leveraging systems-level approaches and cutting-edge developmental biology techniques to understand how neural crest cell state transitions are achieved post-transcriptionally to drive cell fate choices, we can begin to understand how these programs fail during development or may be hijacked during disease.
The major research goals of our laboratory are: 1) To identify the post-transcriptional regulatory linkages controlling neural crest fate decisions across developmental time and space 2) To parse the intersection of intrinsic and extrinsic factors with post-transcriptional regulation during neural crest and nervous system development 3) To leverage post-transcriptional regulatory linkages controlling EMT and migration in neural crest and neural crest-derived cancers
Education & Training
Show all (3) Hide
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training University of California 08/2022
- Postdoctoral Training Developmental Biology California Institute of Technology 07/2022
- PhD Biology University at Albany, State University of New York 12/2013
Websites
Show all (1) Hide
- www.devbiorna.com (devbiorna.com)
Grants and Projects
Show all (2) Hide
Publications (13)
Top publication keywords:
Enteric Nervous SystemEpithelial-Mesenchymal TransitionWnt Signaling PathwayNeural CrestLamininChick EmbryoGene Expression Regulation, DevelopmentalHeterogeneous-Nuclear RibonucleoproteinsXenopus laevisAvian ProteinsBasement MembraneNeural TubeHeterogeneous-Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein KAxonsNuclear Localization Signals
-
"Beyond transcription: How post-transcriptional mechanisms drive neural crest EMT".
Genesis (New York, N.Y. : 2000) 2023 Guzman-Espinoza M, Kim M, Ow C, Hutchins EJ -
Temporal changes in plasma membrane lipid content induce endocytosis to regulate developmental epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2022 Piacentino ML, Hutchins EJ, Andrews CJ, Bronner ME -
RNA-binding protein Elavl1/HuR is required for maintenance of cranial neural crest specification.
eLife 2022 Hutchins EJ, Gandhi S, Chacon J, Piacentino M, Bronner ME -
Essential function and targets of BMP signaling during midbrain neural crest delamination.
Developmental biology 2021 Piacentino ML, Hutchins EJ, Bronner ME -
Transcriptomic Identification of Draxin-Responsive Targets During Cranial Neural Crest EMT.
Frontiers in physiology 2021 Hutchins EJ, Piacentino ML, Bronner ME
Show all (8 more) Hide
-
A Spectrum of Cell States During the Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition.
Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) 2021 Hutchins EJ, Bronner ME -
Bimodal function of chromatin remodeler Hmga1 in neural crest induction and Wnt-dependent emigration.
eLife 2020 Gandhi S, Hutchins EJ, Maruszko K, Park JH, Thomson M, Bronner ME -
Draxin alters laminin organization during basement membrane remodeling to control cranial neural crest EMT.
Developmental biology 2018 Hutchins EJ, Bronner ME -
Draxin acts as a molecular rheostat of canonical Wnt signaling to control cranial neural crest EMT.
The Journal of cell biology 2018 Hutchins EJ, Bronner ME -
Migration and diversification of the vagal neural crest.
Developmental biology 2018 Hutchins EJ, Kunttas E, Piacentino ML, Howard AGA, Bronner ME, Uribe RA -
A novel role for the nuclear localization signal in regulating hnRNP K protein stability in vivo.
Biochemical and biophysical research communications 2016 Hutchins EJ, Belrose JL, Szaro BG -
Phosphorylation of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K at an extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation site promotes neurofilament-medium protein expression and axon outgrowth in Xenopus.
Neuroscience letters 2015 Hutchins EJ, Belrose JL, Szaro BG -
c-Jun N-terminal kinase phosphorylation of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein K regulates vertebrate axon outgrowth via a posttranscriptional mechanism.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2013 Hutchins EJ, Szaro BG