Back to Faculty List John J. LaPres Assistant Professor. The LaPres lab is focused on understanding the role PAS proteins plan in mediating the toxicity of environmental pollutants such as dioxin and transition metals. In addition, we are attempting to identify other cellular targets for ARA9 and the possible influences these may have on AHR toxicity.
Hypoxia is a state of decreased oxygen availability.
This environment is detrimental to organisms and they have adapted a response to this decrease in oxygen tension. Hif3 a , ARNT and ARNT2. Transition metals, such as nickel and cobalt, are also capable of increasing a similar battery of genes and this transcriptional regulation, in some cases, is dependent upon HIFs. These metals can also elicit a toxic effect and the role HIFs play in this toxicity is unknown. Our lab is focused on identifying the battery of genes regulated by metals using genomic technology such as microarrays and high throughput sequencing.