Charles S. Abrams
Associate Professor, Dept of Medicine

Cell Biology and Physiology Program

Address

Biomedical Research Bldg, #912 & 927
421 Curie Blvd
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Office tel.: 215 898-1058
Lab tel.: 215 898-5189
Fax: 215 573-7400
E-mail: abrams@mail.med.upenn.edu


Education

Johns Hopkins University: BES (BioEngineering), 1980.

Yale School of Medicine: MD (Medicine), 1984.

Research Interests

• Phospholipid signaling in platelet and T-cells.

Key words: Pleckstrin, PH domains, cytoskeleton.

Search PubMed for articles

Description of Research

Inappropriate platelet activation contributes to vascular diseases including stroke and myocardial ischemia. Our laboratory is focused on phospholipid signaling in platelets and its contribution to inappropriate platelet activation. Ongoing projects are directed at understanding the roles of pleckstrin and lipid kinases in platelets. Pleckstrin (p47) was once solely known as an early marker of platelet activation; more recently it has been noted to contain the prototypic Pleckstrin Homology motif. Over the past half dozen years, work derived from our laboratory has demonstrated that pleckstrin plays a dominant role in the reorganization of the platelet, and lymphocyte, cytoskeleton. Furthermore, our laboratory has established these effects are regulated by pleckstrin phosphorylation, require critical lipid-binding residues contained with the amino-terminal Pleckstrin Homology domain, and have implicated an effector for this process to be the small GTP-binding protein, Rac. Additional work from our laboratory has helped define the role of phospholipid kinases in the pathway that is initiated by G-protein coupled receptors and ultimately leads to actin reorganization. Our studies use molecular and cellular biologic techniques to examine blood cell biology, and involve expression mutagenesis, single cell microinjection, genetic library screening, and murine homologous gene targeting ("gene knock-out").

Recent Publications

Cieslik, K., Abrams, C.S., and Wu, K.K.: Upregulation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase promoter by a PI3k/JAK2/MEK1-dependent pathway. J. Biol. Chem. 2001 276: 1211-1219.

Chatah, N.H. and Abrams, C.S.: G-protein coupled receptors regulate the membrane association of PIP5K I alpha through a pathway dependent on both Rac and Rho. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 276: 34059-34065, 2001.

Abrams, C.S. and Lemmon, M.A.: Pleckstrin Homology domains and the cytoskeleton. FEBS Letters. 513 (1): 71-76, 2002.

Abrams, C.S. and Cines, D.B.: Platelet Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa Inhibitors and Thrombocytopenia: Possible link between platelet activation, autoimmunity and thrombosis. Thrombosis & Haemostasis. 88: 888-889 (2002).

Bogatkevich, G. S., Tourkina, E., Abrams, C.S., Harley, R.A., Silver, R.M., and Ludwicka-Bradley, A.: Contractile Activity and Smooth Muscle-alpha Actin Organization in Thrombin-induced Human Lung Myofibroblasts. American Journal of Physiology. 285: L334-343, 2003.

Rotation Projects

• pleckstrin2 and actin assembly
• PIP5K Ig and focal adhesions

Lab personnel:

Andrew Louden - Postdoctoral Fellow
Feng Wang - Postdoctoral Fellow
Seun-Ah Yang - Postdoctoral Fellow
Tami Bach - Postdoctoral Fellow
Michael Hu - Technician
Lurong Lian - Technician
Qing Chen - Undergraduate Student