Martha Peterson, Ph.D.

Professor

Selected publications

Research statement: The human genome has been found to encode a surprisingly small number of genes. However, a much greater diversity of protein products are generated from the limited number of genes through alternative RNA processing; as many as 60% may be alternatively processed. Thus, to fully understand gene expression, we must know how the complex process of alternative RNA processing is regulated. My lab has been studying the mRNAs encoding the secreted and membrane-bound forms of IgM as a model system for developmentally regulated RNA processing. A common precursor RNA is differentially processed at its 3' end to produce these two mRNAs and the pattern of RNA processing varies during B cell development. The regulation of these mRNAs involves a competition between two mutually exclusive RNA processing reactions: a cleavage-polyadenylation event and an RNA splicing event.

We have used tissue culture cell lines and transgenic mice to learn more about these two reactions and to understand how this gene is regulated. We are using microarray and cDNA representational difference analysis techniques to identify RNA processing regulators that are differentially expressed during B cell development. I am also interested in the developmentally regulated termination of transcription which serves to regulate IgM and IgD expression and may also contribute to µs and µm regulation. We have described an RNA polymerase II pause site downstream from the secretory-specific poly(A) site. We are exploring the relationship between polyadenylation efficiency, RNA polymerase elongation and transcriptional termination during B cell development.