Steve Luckey

In cardiomyocytes, glycogen synthase kinase-3b (GSK-3b) has been demonstrated to be a negative regulator of cardiac hypertrophy.  The focus of the project has been to elucidate the role of GSK-3b in various models of cardiac hypertrophy.  The models of interest include exercise, pharmacological agents, and 3 transgenic murine models of familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (FHC) caused by either a-myosin heavy chain (MyHC) or two different troponin T (cTnT) mutations. 

A second project involves identifying genes in the heart that are differentially regulated during various exercise paradigms by microarray analysis. The use of a unique strain of mice called chromosomal substitution strain (CSS) mice also help identify which genes or set of genes on specific chromosomes are involved in the ability of mice to exercise.