Lily Jan, PhD

Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator
Professor
Department of Physiology
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
+1 415 476-8748
Research Overview: 

Potassium channels regulate neuronal signaling, control the flow of salt across epithelia, heart rate, vascular tone, and the release of hormones such as insulin, and protect neurons and muscles under metabolic stress. In order to study potassium channels, we have chosen to isolate individual potassium channel genes so that the channels they give rise to can be studied one at a time, and then compared with potassium channels in native tissues. We have recently extended our studies to the cloning and characterization of calcium-activated chloride channels with wide distribution and diverse physiological functions.

Thus our channel studies were initiated by positional cloning of the Shaker voltage-gated potassium (Kv) channel gene in the fruit fly and expression cloning of inwardly rectifying potassium (Kir) channels - founding members of two large, distantly related families of potassium channels - as well as expression cloning of calcium-activated chloride channel (CaCC) of a novel ion channel family. Mutations of potassium channels in the Kv and Kir families cause diseases of the brain (epilepsy, episodic ataxia), ear (deafness), kidney (hypertension), pancreas (hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia of infancy), heart (arrhythmia), skeletal muscle (periodic paralysis), as well as developmental abnormalities of neural crest-derived tissues (Andersen's syndrome). Understandably, potassium channel openers and blockers have been developed for pharmaceutical purposes. Likewise, CaCC blockers may reduce hypertension whereas CaCC enhancement has been considered as potential treatment for cystic fibrosis and other pulmonary diseases including asthma.  A better understanding of the function of these channels will therefore not only satisfy our curiosity, it will have clinical significance. We are currently taking a range of experimental approaches - electrophysiological, cell biological, biochemical and genetic - to examine the physiological functions of potassium channels and calcium-activated chloride channels.

Primary Thematic Area: 
Neurobiology
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Vascular & Cardiac Biology
Research Summary: 
Potassium Channels
Mentorship Development: 

9/11/20    Mentoring Across Differences

Websites

Publications: 

Drosophila TMEM63 and mouse TMEM63A are lysosomal mechanosensory ion channels.

Nature cell biology

Li K, Guo Y, Wang Y, Zhu R, Chen W, Cheng T, Zhang X, Jia Y, Liu T, Zhang W, Jan LY, Jan YN

Rare variants in ANO1, encoding a calcium-activated chloride channel, predispose to moyamoya disease.

Brain : a journal of neurology

Pinard A, Ye W, Fraser SM, Rosenfeld JA, Pichurin P, Hickey SE, Guo D, Cecchi AC, Boerio ML, Guey S, Aloui C, Lee K, Kraemer M, Alyemni SO, University of Washington Center for Mendelian Genomics, Bamshad MJ, Nickerson DA, Tournier-Lasserve E, Haider S, Jin SC, Smith ER, Kahle KT, Jan LY, He M, Milewicz DM

Identification of a drug binding pocket in TMEM16F calcium-activated ion channel and lipid scramblase.

Nature communications

Feng S, Puchades C, Ko J, Wu H, Chen Y, Figueroa EE, Gu S, Han TW, Ho B, Cheng T, Li J, Shoichet B, Jan YN, Cheng Y, Jan LY

The GARP complex prevents sterol accumulation at the trans-Golgi network during dendrite remodeling.

The Journal of cell biology

O'Brien CE, Younger SH, Jan LY, Jan YN