Hanna Damke, Ph. D.

Department: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Academic Unit:  College of Medicine
Title: Research Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Göttingen (1992), Germany

Contact Information

Mail Stop: 330
Phone: (775) 784-1830
Fax: (775) 784-1419
e-mail: damke@unr.edu

http://www.cabnr.unr.edu/Directory_Details.aspx?hIj7_GDp0x45=415

Research Area(s)

Biochemistry

Research Interests

My research focuses on the role of the GTPase dynamin in endocytosis and intracellular signaling events. Dynamin is involved in the final steps of clathrin coated vesicle formation at the plasma membrane, either as mechano-chemical enzyme or as regulatory GTPase. My research and others have provided further evidence that dynamin is multi-functional, with the potential to regulate diverse aspects of cellular function: The isoform dynamin-2 is associated with selective sites of actin rearrangements where it recruits proteins known to regulate actin assembly. We provided one of the first lines of evidence that dynamin-2 specifically acts as a signaling component that controls entry into an apoptosis pathway. Dynamin-2, but not dynamin-1, can induce apoptosis when expressed as little as 2-fold over the endogenous level. This response is dependent on the presence of functional p53, a tumor suppressor and transcriptional regulator, suggesting a role for dynamin as signaling GTPase in response to cell stress.  My goal is to use this dynamin-2 specific phenotype to understand how this multi-functional enzyme links endocytic events to signal transduction, rearrangements of the actin cytoskeleton, cell proliferation and apoptosis. With cell biological, biochemical and profiling approaches we will gain valuable insights into these fundamental questions relevant to cancer biology.

Selected Publications

Sever, S., Damke, H., and Schmid, S.L. (2000) Dynamin: GTP controls the formation of constricted coated pits, the rate limiting step in clathrin-mediated endocytosis.J. Cell Biol. 150:1137-1148.

Fish, K.N., Schmid, S.L., and Damke, H. (2000) Evidence that dynamin-2 functions as a signal-transducing GTPase. J. Cell Biol. 150:145-154.

Damke, H. Binns, D.D., Ueda, H., Schmid, S.L., and Baba, T. (2001) Dynamin GTPase domain mutants block endocytic vesicle formation at morphologically distinct stages. Mol. Biol. of the Cell Vol.12: 2578-2389

Schlunck, G., Damke, H. Kiosses, W.B., Rusk, N., Symons, M.H. Waterman-Storer, CM, Schmid, S.L., and Schwartz, M.A. (2004) Modulation of rac function by dynamin. Mol. Biol. of the Cell Vol.15: 256-267