Faculty
Greg Beitel
Associate Professor
Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology Department
PhD, MIT
Greg Beitel, PhD
Email: beitel@northwestern.edu
Phone: (847) 467-7776
Fax: (847) 467-1380
Room: Pancoe Rm 1-407
Research Interests
Molecular Genetics of Organ Morphogenesis
Our laboratory's long term goal is to understand how individual cells control their shapes and coordinate with other cells to create the complex organs found in multicellular organisms. To this end, we are using genetic, molecular and cell biological approaches to identify and study genes required for the morphogenesis of the Drosophila tracheal system. The Drosophila tracheal system is a ramifying network of epithelial tubes that serves as a combined airway and vascular system for delivering oxygen to tissues in the fly. At the molecular level, Drosophila tracheal development has striking similarities to both vertebrate lung and vascular development. These similarities, coupled with the simplicity of the tracheal system and the power of Drosophila genetics, makes the tracheal system an outstanding model system for understanding the morphogenesis of the tubular epithelia that are central to such vertebrate organs as the vascular system, lung and kidney.
We have shown that size of the Drosophila tracheal tubes is controlled by genetic programs and identified mutations in more than fifteen genes that cause the tracheal tubes to have abnormal lengths or diameters. We and others have cloned many of these genes and shown that many of them encode components of a cell-cell junction that also control paracellular diffusion, cell polarity and cell growth . We are characterizing the cell biological and biochemical functions of these proteins in both flies and vertebrates, and are working to clone additional genes that control cell shape.
Selected Publications
More than a pipe dream: uncovering mechanisms of vascular lumen formation. Nelson KS, Beitel GJ. Dev Cell. 2009 Oct;17(4):435-7.
Elevated CO2 suppresses specific Drosophila innate immune responses and resistance to bacterial infection. Helenius IT, Krupinski T, Turnbull DW, Gruenbaum Y, Silverman N, Johnson EA, Sporn PH, Sznajder JI, Beitel GJ. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Oct 21. [Epub ahead of print]
Unexpected roles of the Na-K-ATPase and other ion transporters in cell junctions and tubulogenesis. Krupinski T, Beitel GJ. Physiology (Bethesda). 2009 Jun;24:192-201. Review.
Nelson KS, Beitel GJ. Cell junctions: lessons from a broken heart. Curr Biol. 2009 Feb 10;19(3):R122-3.
Helenius IT, Beitel GJ. The first "Slit" is the deepest: the secret to a hollow heart. J Cell Biol. 2008 Jul 28;182(2):221-3. Review.
Le T, Yu M, Williams B, Goel S, Paul SM, Beitel GJ. CaSpeR5, a family of Drosophila transgenesis and shuttle vectors with improved multiple cloning sites.Biotechniques. 2007 Feb;42(2):164, 166. No abstract available. PMID: 17373479 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Wu VM, Yu MH, Paik R, Banerjee S, Liang Z, Paul SM, Bhat MA, Beitel GJ. Drosophila Varicose, a member of a new subgroup of basolateral MAGUKs, is required for septate junctions and tracheal morphogenesis. Development. 2007 Mar;134(5):999-1009. Epub 2007 Jan 31. PMID: 17267446 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Paul SM, Palladino MJ, Beitel GJ. A pump-independent function of the Na,K-ATPase is required for epithelial junction function and tracheal tube-size control. Development. 2007 Jan;134(1):147-55. PMID: 17164420 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Le T, Liang Z, Patel H, Yu MH, Sivasubramaniam G, Slovitt M, Tanentzapf G, Mohanty N, Paul SM, Wu VM, Beitel GJ. A new family of Drosophila balancer chromosomes with a w- dfd-GMR yellow fluorescent protein marker. Genetics. 2006 Dec;174(4):2255-7. Epub 2006 Oct 22. PMID: 17057238 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Swanson LE, Beitel GJ. Tubulogenesis: an inside job. Curr Biol. 2006 Jan 24;16(2):R51-3. Review. No abstract available. PMID: 16431358 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Paul SM, Beitel GJ. Tubulogenesis: zipping up your fly. Curr Biol. 2005 Jan 26;15(2):R70-2. Review. PMID: 15668162 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
View all publications by Greg Beitel listed in the National Library of Medicine (PubMed). Past and current IBiS students in blue