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null Anne-Marie Lauzon, PhD

Senior Scientist, RI-MUHC, Glen site

Translational Research in Respiratory Diseases Program

Centre for Translational Biology

Professor, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University

Department of Medicine, Division of Respiratory Medicine, MUHC

 

Keywords

asthma • smooth muscle • biophysics • myosin • actin

Research Focus

My research focuses on understanding the role of specific proteins in determining the contractile properties of smooth muscle, in particular as they pertain to airway hyperresponsiveness in asthma. Thus, I established a research program to investigate the structure and function of normal and asthmatic airway smooth muscle. Specifically, the first theme of my research consists in characterizing contractile protein expression and function in normal and asthmatic airways, and in innate and allergic models of asthma. The second theme of my research consists in investigating fundamental properties of these contractile proteins by measuring rate and force generation directly at the level of the myosin molecules. Thus, I set up a tissue and molecular mechanics laboratory which includes an in vitro motility and a laser trap assays. My general hypothesis is that alterations in expression and function of specific contractile proteins are determinants of airway hyperresponsiveness in asthma.

Selected Publications

Click on Pubmed to see my current publications list

  • Ijpma G, Kachmar L, Matusovsky OS, Bates JH, Benedetti A, Martin JG, Lauzon AM. Human trachealis and main bronchi smooth muscle are normoresponsive in asthma. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2015 Apr 15;191(8):884-93. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201407-1296OC. PMID: 25695616.

  • Hilbert L, Balassy Z, Zitouni NB, Mackey MC, Lauzon AM. Phosphate and ADP differently inhibit coordinated smooth muscle myosin groups. Biophys J. 2015 Feb 3;108(3):622-31. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2014.12.008. PMID: 25650929.

  • Roman HN, Juncker D, Lauzon AM. A microfluidic chamber to study the dynamics of muscle-contraction-specific molecular interactions. Anal Chem. 2015 Mar 3;87(5):2582-7. doi: 10.1021/ac503963r. Epub 2015 Feb 10. PMID: 25629255.

  • Roman HN, Zitouni NB, Kachmar L, Benedetti A, Sobieszek A, Lauzon The role of caldesmon and its phosphorylation by ERK on the binding force of unphosphorylated myosin to actin. AM. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2014 Nov;1840(11):3218-25. doi: 10.1016/j.bbagen.2014.07.024. Epub 2014 Aug 7. PMID: 25108062.

  • Hilbert L, Bates G, Roman HN, Blumenthal JL, Zitouni NB, Sobieszek A, Mackey MC, Lauzon AM. Molecular mechanical differences between isoforms of contractile actin in the presence of isoforms of smooth muscle tropomyosin. PLoS Comput Biol. 2013 Oct;9(10):e1003273. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003273. Epub 2013 Oct 24. PMID: 24204225.