Dr.Rosa Ventrella, Ph.D.

The Ventrella Lab:

My lab focuses on understanding the development and maintenance of ciliated epithelia. Defects in cilia formation and function can lead to a collection of human disorders known as ciliopathies. Due to the diversity of cilia function, ciliopathies result in a variety of abnormalities including kidney and liver defects, central nervous system deficiencies leading to mental retardation, obesity, patterning defects, chronic infections, and infertility. Xenopus provides an ideal model for studying motile cilia because their embryonic skin generates a ciliated epithelium containing similar cell types and transcriptional cascades to the mammalian lung epithelium. They both contained highly-specialized differentiated cells known as multiciliated cells (MCCs) that contain approximately 150-evenly spaced cilia, which are each anchored to a centriole and an elaborate cytoskeletal network. Therefore, understanding mechanisms of ciliated epithelial homeostasis can provide insight into changes that occur in response to injury from environmental insults, smoking, and infections, as well as uncover novel signaling pathways that can lead to the drastic phenotypes associated with ciliopathies.



Potential projects in my lab include:


Determining molecular mechanisms of multiciliated cell formation in Xenopus embryonic skin
Identifying signaling pathways that control tissue regeneration in Xenopus tadpoles
Establishing and characterizing a Xenopus model of epithelial cancer development
Developmental Biology
Cancer Biology
Regeneration