Ernst Mullner (Müllner) Lab

Signal Transduction and Hematopoiesis / Erythropoiesis
 
Haematopoiesis starts from stem-cells in the bone marrow, which can differentiate into specific lineages, thereby becoming more and more restricted in their developmental plasticity. This process ends with late-stage committed progenitors undergoing terminal maturation. Our group focuses on molecular players critically involved in reaching the balance between sustained proliferation versus terminal differentiation of haematopoietic progenitors, with particular emphasis on erythropoiesis.
 
 

 
 
As systems, we use either foetal liver- or bone marrow-derived mouse erythroblasts as well as myeloid progenitors and various genetically modified mouse strains. More recently, we employ corresponding cells from cord- or peripheral blood of healthy or diseased human donors. The various cell types can be kept as immature progenitors in culture for extended periods and terminally differentiated in a highly synchronous manner.
 
 

Mature erythrocytes

These cellular tools are mainly used to study
 
-- Signalling pathways emanating from extracellular ligands like growth factors (stem cell factor, Wnt, erythropoietin) or steroid hormones (thyroid hormone T3, glucocorticoid, androgen)
 
-- Cell-type specific features in the regulation of iron metabolism during erythropoiesis and
 
-- Cell size control. The latter topic was originally triggered by the decrease in cell volume during erythroid maturation.
 
 

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  Last update: August 21, 2008