Gia Voeltz Explained

Gia Voeltz
Birth Name:Gia Voeltz
Birth Place:Bloomington, Indiana, United States
Doctoral Advisor:Joan A. Steitz
Thesis Title:mRNA Stability is Regulated during Early Development by AU-rich Sequences and a Novel Poly(A) Binding Protein, ePAB
Thesis Year:2001
Known For:discovering the function of the Reticulon protein family

Gia Voeltz is an American cell biologist. She is a professor of Molecular, Cellular andDevelopmental Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She is known for her research identifying the factors and unraveling themechanisms that determine the structure and dynamics of the largest organelle in the cell: theendoplasmic reticulum.[1] [2] Her lab has produced paradigm shifting studies onorganelle membrane contact sites that have revealed that most cytoplasmic organelles are not isolated entities but are instead physically tethered to an interconnected ER membrane network.[3] [4] [5]

Her research has revealed the fundamental nature of these ER contact sites in regulating thebiogenesis of other organelles at positions where they are tethered and closely opposed.[6] [7] [8] [9]

Early life and education

Gia Voeltz grew up in several different states including Indiana, Hawaii, Minnesota and Upstate New York, where she graduated from Chenango Forks High School. She attended university at theUniversity of California Santa Cruz where she majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.She performed her senior thesis work in the lab of Manny Ares[10] on pre-spliceosome assembly in yeast.[11] This experience in the Ares lab at UC Santa Cruz inspired her to become ascientist. Her early undergraduate research studying RNA processing led her to pursue a PhDthesis in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University in the labof Joan A. Steitz, a leading figure in RNA biology. Her PhD research investigated how mRNAstability was regulated during different stages of early development using Xenopus eggs andextract as a model system.[12] [13]

She then moved to Harvard Medical School to join the lab of Tom Rapoport as a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellow.

Career

Gia Voeltz was trained as an RNA biologist but made a major switch in scientific sub-fields whenshe moved to Tom Rapoport’s lab as a postdoc to study how organelles get their shape. As apostdoc, she set out to identify how membrane proteins generate the elaborate shape of the ER.To do this, she used biochemical fractionation of a Xenopus egg in vitro assay for ER network formation.[14] Her postdoctoral studies identified the Reticulon family of ER membraneproteins and demonstrated their conserved role in generating the structure of the tubular ERnetwork. The hairpin "wedge" mechanism proposed was that Reticulon has two short hairpin transmembrane domains that occupy more area in the outer leaflet to generate the high membrane curvature found in tubules.

Gia Voeltz moved to University of Colorado Boulder in 2006[15] to start her own lab. Herlab leveraged spinning disk confocal microscopy to visualize the reticulon-generated dynamic tubular ER network in live cells at high resolution. This led to the observation that ER tubule dynamics often occurred at positions where the ER tubules were tightly tethered to other dynamic organelles like endosomes and mitochondria.

Multi-color live cell fluorescence imaging complemented by high resolution electron microscopy and tomography revealed that the vast majority of endosomes and mitochondria aretethered to the ER at contact sites. In a hallmark paper published in 2011, Voeltz lab, in a collaboration with Jodi Nunnari’s lab, showed that ER tubules wrap around mitochondria to define the position where mitochondria constrict and divide in animal and yeast cells.

Her lab has gone on to show that ER contact sites also regulate early and late endosome fission, RNA granule division, and mitochondrial fusion.[16] [17] These works establish the ER network as a master regulator of organelle biogenesis through ER contact sites.[18]

Gia Voeltz became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholar in 2016[19] and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 2018.[20] [21] She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2023.[22]

Awards and honors

Institutions

Notes and References

  1. Westrate LM, Lee JE, Prinz WA, Voeltz GK . Form follows function: the importance of endoplasmic reticulum shape . Annual Review of Biochemistry . 84 . 791–811 . January 2015 . 25580528 . 10.1146/annurev-biochem-072711-163501. 207675243 .
  2. Voeltz GK, Prinz WA, Shibata Y, Rist JM, Rapoport TA . A class of membrane proteins shaping the tubular endoplasmic reticulum . Cell . 124 . 3 . 573–586 . 10 February 2006 . 16469703 . 10.1016/j.cell.2005.11.047. free .
  3. Friedman JR, Webster BM, Mastronarde DN, Verhey KJ, Voeltz GK. ER sliding dynamics and ER-mitochondrial contacts occur on acetylated microtubules. Journal of Cell Biology. 190. 3. 363–375. 9 August 2010. 20696706. 2922647. 10.1083/jcb.200911024.
  4. Friedman JR, Dibenedetto JR, West M, Rowland AA, Voeltz GK . Endoplasmic reticulum-endosome contact increases as endosomes traffic and mature. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 24. 7. 1030–1040. 6 February 2013. 23389631. 3608491. 10.1091/mbc.E12-10-0733.
  5. Wu H, Carvalho P, Voeltz GK. Here, there, and everywhere: The importance of ER membrane contact sites. Science. 361. 6401. 3 August 2018. 30072511. 6568312. 10.1126/science.aan5835.
  6. Friedman JR, Lackner LL, West M, Dibenedetto JR, Nunnari J, Voeltz GK. ER tubules mark sites of mitochondrial division. Science. 334. 6954. 358–362. 21 October 2011. 21885730. 3366560. 10.1126/science.1207385. 2011Sci...334..358F.
  7. Rowland AA, Chitwood PJ, Phillips MJ, Voeltz GK. ER contact sites define the position and timing of endosome fission. Cell. 159. 5. 1027–1041. 20 November 2014. 25416943. 4634643. 10.1016/j.cell.2014.10.023.
  8. Hoyer MJ, Chitwood PJ, Ebmeier CC, Striepen JF, Qi RZ, Old WM, Voeltz GK. A Novel Class of ER Membrane Proteins Regulates ER-Associated Endosome Fission. Cell. 175. 1. 254–265. 13 September 2018. 30220460. 6195207. 10.1016/j.cell.2018.08.030.
  9. Lee JE, Cathey PI, Wu H, Parker R, Voeltz GK. Endoplasmic reticulum contact sites regulate the dynamics of membraneless organelles. Science. 367. 6477. 31 January 2020. 32001628. 10088059. 10.1126/science.aay7108.
  10. Web site: Dr. Manuel Ares . mcd.ucsc.edu . University of California, Santa Cruz . 18 January 2024 .
  11. Perriman R, Barta I, Voeltz GK, Abelson J, Ares M. ATP requirement for Prp5p function is determined by Cus2p and the structure of U2 small nuclear RNA. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 100. 24. 13857–13862. 10 November 2003. 14610285. 283511. 10.1073/pnas.2036312100. free. 2003PNAS..10013857P.
  12. Voeltz GK, Steitz JA. AUUUA Sequences Direct mRNA Deadenylation Uncoupled from Decay during Xenopus Early Development. Molecular and Cellular Biology. 18. 12. 7537–7545. 23 August 1998. 9819439. 109334. 10.1128/MCB.18.12.7537.
  13. Voeltz GK, Ongkasuwan J, Standart N, Steitz JA. A novel embryonic poly(A) binding protein, ePAB, regulates mRNA deadenylation in Xenopus egg extracts. Genes & Development. 15 March 2001. 15. 6. 774–788. 11274061. 312653. 10.1101/gad.872201.
  14. Dreier L, Rapoport TA . In vitro formation of the endoplasmic reticulum occurs independently of microtubules by a controlled fusion reaction. Journal of Cell Biology. 148. 5. 883–898. 6 March 2000. 10704440. 2174540. 10.1083/jcb.148.5.883.
  15. Voeltz GK, Cheeseman I. Building a path in cell biology. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 23. 21. 13 October 2017. 4145–4147. 23112222. 3484087. 10.1091/mbc.E12-05-0382.
  16. Abrisch RG, Gumbin SC, Wisniewski BT, Lackner LL, Voeltz GK. Fission and fusion machineries converge at ER contact sites to regulate mitochondrial morphology. Journal of Cell Biology. 219. 4. 25 February 2020. 32328629. 7147108. 10.1083/jcb.201911122.
  17. Nguyen TT, Voeltz and GK. An ER phospholipid hydrolase drives ER-associated mitochondrial constriction for fission and fusion. eLife. 30 Nov 2022. 11. 36448541. 9725753. 10.7554/eLife.84279. free.
  18. Voeltz, Gia (speaker). 22 May 2019. Factors and Functions of Organelle Membrane Contact Sites. 18 January 2024. Youtube. iBiology.
  19. Web site: HHMI 2016 Faculty Scholars. HHMI. 18 January 2024.
  20. Web site: HHMI Bets Big On 19 New Investigators. 23 May 2018. HHMI. 18 January 2024.
  21. Web site: Cellular cartographer Voeltz named HHMI investigator, granted $8 million. 23 May 2018. University of Colorado Boulder. 18 January 2024.
  22. Web site: Pioneering biologist elected to National Academy of Sciences. 12 May 2023. University of Colorado Boulder. 18 January 2024.
  23. Web site: Gia K. Voeltz . nasonline.org . National Academy of Sciences . 18 Jan 2024.
  24. Web site: Nineteen distinguished scientists recognized as 2023 ASCB Fellows . 2 August 2023 . ascb.org . American Society for Cell Biology . 18 Jan 2024.
  25. Web site: Günter Blobel Early Career Award . 2012 . ascb.org . American Society for Cell Biology . 18 January 2024.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Gia Voeltz".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.