DR. JEFFREY (Jeb) GAUDET

B.Sc. (Toronto), Ph.D. (Toronto), Associate Professor,Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. AHFMR Senior Scholar, CRC in Developmental Genetics (Tier 2)

Affiliations:  Member,Genes and Development Research Group.

Research Interests:

The Gaudet lab is interested in several questions relating to organ development. Organs are complex structures consisting of many different types of cells (muscles, nerves, epithelia, etc.). How are different cells in an organ given specific identities? And how are these different types of cells instructed to come together in a common structure? Furthermore, what controls organ shape? Or size?

The lab seeks to address these questions by studying the pharynx of the nematode C. elegans. C. elegans is a small (~1mm long) worm that is made up of less than 1000 cells. The pharynx is the front end of the worm's digestive tract and is comparable to the human mouth and throat. The pharynx is relatively simple, containing fewer than 100 cells, yet this organ contains more than five types of cells.

The lab is focused on one specific cell type, the pharyngeal glands, in order to understand how these cells are specified, how they interact with other pharyngeal cells and how they obtain their unique form.

To date, our research has uncovered key regulators of gland development and has begun to resolve the interactions between these regulators. More recently, we have begun to understand how the glands acquire their unique shapes and positions within the pharynx and how growth of the glands is coordinated with growth of the pharynx and growth of the animal as a whole.

The C. elegans pharynx is a useful model for studying organ development not just because of its simplicity, but also because many of the genes involved in pharynx development are also involved in development of the human digestive tract. For example, one of the key regulators of pharyngeal gland development and function is a gene that serves a similar function in human salivary glands

Lab web page

Personnel:

View Pub Med for Recent publications & abstracts

Recent Publications:

• WH Raharjo, BC Logan, S Wen, J Kalb, J Gaudet. in vitro and in vivo characterization of C. elegans PHA-4/FoxA response elements. Developmental Dynamics, --. (Refereed, In Press.)
• J Kormish, J Gaudet, J McGhee. Development of the C. elegans digestive tract. Current Opinions in Genetics and Development, --, http://www.current-opinion.com/jgen/about.htm (Refereed, invited review, In Press) 
• Gaudet, J., and McGhee, J. D. (2010) Recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating C. elegans transcription. Dev Dyn.
• McGhee, J. D., Fukushige, T., Krause, M. W., Minnema, S. E., Goszczynski, B., Gaudet, J., Kohara, Y., Bossinger, O., Zhao, Y., Khattra, J., et al. (2009). ELT-2 is the predominant transcription factor controlling differentiation and function of the C. elegans intestine, from embryo to adult. Dev Biol 327, 551-565.
• Reece-Hoyes, J. S., Deplancke, B., Barrasa, M. I., Hatzold, J., Smit, R. B., Arda, H. E., Pope, P. A., Gaudet, J., Conradt, B., and Walhout, A. J. (2009). The C. elegans Snail homolog CES-1 can activate gene expression in vivo and share targets with bHLH transcription factors. Nucleic Acids Res 37, 3689-3698.
• Ghai, V., and Gaudet, J. (2008). The CSL transcription factor LAG-1 directly represses hlh-6 expression in C. elegans. Dev Biol 322, 334-344.
• Smit, R. B., Schnabel, R., and Gaudet, J. (2008). The HLH-6 transcription factor regulates C. elegans pharyngeal gland development and function. PLoS Genet 4, e1000222.
• Raharjo, I., and Gaudet, J. (2007). Gland-specific expression of C. elegans hlh-6 requires the combinatorial action of three distinct promoter elements. Dev Biol 302, 295-308.

Contact Information:

The University of Calgary
Room 2265 Health Sciences Centre
3330 Hospital Drive NW,
Calgary, AB Canada
T2N 4N1
Office Phone: (403) 210-8713
Lab Phone: 210-8823
Fax: (403) 270-0737
E-mail: gaudetj [at] ucalgary [dot] ca.