Ronen Zaidel-BarManagement2019-01-11T09:48:41+08:00
Michael SHEETZ

Ronen ZAIDEL-BAR

Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

zaidelbar@tauex.tau.ac.il

Laboratory website
Zaidel-Bar Cell Adhesion Lab

Ronen Zaidel-Bar

Visiting Faculty

Currently Visting

6-12 Nov 2018
Office: T-Lab, Level 5

Research Areas

Cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion, Regulation of actomyosin contractility and dynamics, C. elegans development, mechanics and molecular mechanisms of morphogenesis

Research Interests

  1. How do specific cytoskeletal proteins contribute to the organization and function of cell adhesion and actomyosin structures?
  2. How are signals processed within the “adhesome” and “contractome” to arrive at the appropriate cytoskeletal arrangement for a given cell state?
  3. How do adhesion sites and the cytoskeleton sense and respond to external mechanical forces?

Biography

Dr Zaidel-Bar obtained his Ph.D. working with Prof Benny Geiger (Weizmann Institute of Science) on the role of force in regulating cell-matrix adhesions. Their work first focused on single proteins and evolved to encompass the entire adhesome network. In his Postdoctoral training with Prof Jeff Hardin (University of Wisconsin – Madison) Dr Zaidel-Bar switched from studying cells in culture to employing the genetic model organism C. elegans for the study of cell-cell adhesions during development. Dr Zaidel-Bar was attracted to Singapore by the opening of MBI and was awarded the Singapore National Research Foundation Fellowship for promising young investigators.

Education

PhD Weizmann Institute of Science

Recent Publications

  1. Bertocchi C, Alegría JJ, Vásquez-Sepúlveda S, Ibanez-Prat R, Srinivasan A, Arrano-Valenzuela I, Castro-Pereira B, Soto-Montandon C, Trujillo-Espergel A, Montenegro-Rojas I, Deguchi S, Owen GI, Kanchanawong P, Cerda M, Motta G, Zaidel-Bar R, and Ravasio A. Systematic AI-assisted screening of the cadhesome to map epithelial monolayer mechanics. Cell Commun Signal 2026;. [PMID: 42399739]
  2. Ray S, Agarwal P, Nitzan A, Nédélec F, and Zaidel-Bar R. Actin capping protein regulates actomyosin contractility to maintain germline architecture in C. elegans. Development 2023;. [PMID: 36897576]
  3. Avivi Kela S, Sethi K, Tan PY, Suresh D, Ong HT, Castaneda PG, Amin MR, Laviv T, Cram EJ, Faix J, and Zaidel-Bar R. Tension-dependent RHGF-1 recruitment to stress fibers drives robust spermathecal tissue contraction. J Cell Biol 2022; 222(2). [PMID: 36574264]
  4. Chen Z, Oh D, Biswas KH, Zaidel-Bar R, and Groves JT. Probing the effect of clustering on EphA2 receptor signaling efficiency by subcellular control of ligand-receptor mobility. Elife 2021; 10. [PMID: 34414885]
  5. Hu S, Grobe H, Guo Z, Wang Y, Doss BL, Pan M, Ladoux B, Bershadsky AD, and Zaidel-Bar R. Reciprocal regulation of actomyosin organization and contractility in non-muscle cells by tropomyosins and alpha-actinins. Mol. Biol. Cell 2019;:mbcE19020082. [PMID: 31216217]
  6. Desai SK, Padmanabhan A, Harshe S, Zaidel-Bar R, and Kenney LJ. Salmonella biofilms program innate immunity for persistence in Caenorhabditis elegans. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2019;. [PMID: 31160462]
  7. Bouffard J, Cecchetelli AD, Clifford C, Sethi K, Zaidel-Bar R, and Cram EJ. The RhoGAP SPV-1 regulates calcium signaling to control the contractility of the C. elegans spermatheca during embryo transits. Mol. Biol. Cell 2019;:mbcE18100633. [PMID: 30726159]
  8. Priti A, Ong HT, Toyama Y, Padmanabhan A, Dasgupta S, Krajnc M, and Zaidel-Bar R. Syncytial germline architecture is actively maintained by contraction of an internal actomyosin corset. Nat Commun 2018; 9(1):4694. [PMID: 30410005]
  9. Agarwal P, and Zaidel-Bar R. Principles of Actomyosin Regulation In Vivo. Trends Cell Biol. 2018;. [PMID: 30385150]
  10. Chen Z, Oh D, Biswas KH, Yu C, Zaidel-Bar R, and Groves JT. Spatially modulated ephrinA1:EphA2 signaling increases local contractility and global focal adhesion dynamics to promote cell motility. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2018;. [PMID: 29866846]

Lab Members

How is SRF signaling activated?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on How is SRF signaling activated?

How is SRF signaling activated? Myocardin, MAL (or MRTF-A) and MRTF-B are the best-studied examples of MRTFs. In the cytoplasm, MRTFs exist in a stable complex with monomeric G-actin via RPEL domains, which exist [...]

Which biochemical pathways are regulated by mechanical signals?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on Which biochemical pathways are regulated by mechanical signals?

Which biochemical pathways are regulated by mechanical signals? Biochemical Mechanotransduction Cells are capable of relaying mechanical stimuli from their physical environment all the way down to the nucleus through electrochemical, biochemical or mechanical pathways. [...]

What is Serum Response Factor?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on What is Serum Response Factor?

What is Serum Response Factor? Serum response factor (SRF) is a transcription factor that plays a key role in the transduction of mechanical signals from cytoplasmic actin and the extracellular environment, to the cell [...]

How do small GTPases regulate mechanosignaling pathways?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on How do small GTPases regulate mechanosignaling pathways?

How do small GTPases regulate mechanosignaling pathways? The small GTPases are a superfamily of enzymes that function as ‘molecular switches’ and are involved in regulating many cellular processes. All small GTPases transduce information through [...]

Mechanosignaling

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on Mechanosignaling

What is mechanosignaling?Cells, whether prokaryotic (unicellular) or eukaryotic (multicellular), constantly interact with their environment. In the case of prokaryotic cells, environmental cues may initiate cellular functions such as cell division, sporulation or cell motility. These [...]

What are Arf GTPases?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on What are Arf GTPases?

What are Arf GTPases? ADP-ribosylation factor (Arf) GTPases are a subfamily of the Ras superfamily of small GTPases. Arf proteins perform diverse and critical functions in fundamental cellular processes like membrane trafficking, lipid modification, [...]

Are focal adhesions dynamic?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on Are focal adhesions dynamic?

Are focal adhesion dynamic? In migrating cells, turnover of adhesion components happens throughout the adhesion life cycle, with a shift in equilibrium between rates of recruitment and removal during the various stages. At the [...]

Are focal adhesions dynamic?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on Are focal adhesions dynamic?

Are focal adhesion dynamic? In migrating cells, turnover of adhesion components happens throughout the adhesion life cycle, with a shift in equilibrium between rates of recruitment and removal during the various stages. At the [...]

What are focal adhesions?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on What are focal adhesions?

What are focal adhesions? Focal adhesions are integrin-containing, multi-protein structures that form mechanical links between intracellular actin bundles and the extracellular matrix or substrate in many cell types [1]. The formation and function of [...]

What are Rho GTPases?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on What are Rho GTPases?

What are Rho GTPases? The Ras homologous (Rho) protein family is a member of the Ras superfamily of small GTPases. Small GTPases are monomeric proteins and function as molecular switches that turn “on” or [...]

What are Ran GTPases?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on What are Ran GTPases?

What are Ran GTPases? The Ran (Ran-related or Ras-like nuclear) protein is the single member of the Ran subfamily, and the most abundant small GTPase in the cell. Like the other small GTPases, Ran [...]

What are Rab GTPases?

Nov 30th, 2023|Comments Off on What are Rab GTPases?

What are Rab GTPases? The Rab proteins constitute the largest family of small GTPases belonging to the Ras superfamily, with approximately 70 members identified in humans. Rab GTPases are the primary regulators of the [...]

About the National University of Singapore

About NUSA leading global university centred in Asia, NUS is Singapore's flagship university, offering a global approach to education and research with a focus on Asian perspectives and expertise.

About the Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore

About MBIOne of four Research Centres of Excellence at NUS, MBI is working to identify, measure and describe how the forces for motility and morphogenesis are expressed at the molecular, cellular and tissue level.
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