Neuroinformatics Workshop: Computing the Chromaffin Cell (Participants)
List of Participants
Co-organizers: Lee E. Eiden, Ph.D. and Michael D. Hirsch, Ph.D.
National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
Neuroinformatics Workshop at the 11th International Society of Chromaffin Cell Biology Conference
September 7, 2001
San Diego, California
Scope:
The aims and goals of the workshop are: (1) to promote a comprehensive functional proteomics/genomics approach to studying chromaffin cells; (2) to initiate plans for establishing a dynamic database to assemble the chromaffin cell transcriptome and proteomes; and (3) to assemble a curator/user group, among the international chromaffin cell research community, for advancing bioinformatic analysis of calcium-initiated neurosecretion and gene activation. Specific topics include: how to formulate databases for active and simulation data in this field; how to extend linkage capabilities for incorporating legacy data; and drafting a strategic plan for the continued use and support of these resources. Proceedings of the Workshop will be published, as a separate book chapter, in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Concept:
The workshop will, for the first time, engage experimentalists from multiple disciplines--neurophysiology, biochemistry, cell and molecular biology--in a bioinformatics approach to understanding neurotransmitter secretion and transmitter-initiated gene expression in a single neuroendocrine cell type. The issues of creation and curation of signal transduction information databases emanating from the literature, and from actual and virtual workshops and interactive websites, will be explored. The role of bioinformatics in signal transduction pathway discovery will be addressed by considering the following questions: Is the chromaffin cell research community currently positioned to form a "consumer-based" curator/user group to advance bioinformatics analysis of first messenger-initiated neurosecretion and gene activation, two principal activities of neurosecretory cells? Can information gaps be efficiently identified through compilation and inspection of databases for signal transduction? How efficiently can a 'saturation' gene array and proteomics data base on chromaffin cells be assembled? Will a systematic 'strategic plan' for chromaffin cell research accelerate neuroinformatics goals in this field, and can this paradigm be applied to the study of neuronal function in general? When do we know enough to propose a major function in secretion and/or gene activation for a new component within a signal transduction pathway in a neuroendocrine cell? How can bioinformatics contribute to shaping the critical path from in vitro screening, intact cell analysis and in vivo testing of therapeutic agents directed at signal transduction pathways? Will molecular, biochemical, and pharmacological specificity emerge from expression profiling of mammalian neuroendocrine cells that is directly applicable to more diverse cellular subtypes within the nervous system? The emphasis of the workshop is on the two major activities of the neuronal cell, secretion and activity-dependent gene expression initiated by calcium. Thus, its goals are tightly focused within the mission of the NIMH Office on Neuroinformatics.
Background:
The International Society for Chromaffin Cell Biology meets every other year to exchange information and discuss advances in chromaffin cell biology. Exocytosis, stimulus-secretion coupling, patch capacitance and electrochemical real-time measurements of neurosecretion, and stimulus-transcription coupling are all neuroendocrine processes that were initially proposed and verified using the chromaffin cell as a model. The connections between receptor- and ion channel-mediated changes in neurosecretion, neurodifferentiation and neural cell death on the one hand, and the signaling pathways responsible for transsynaptic regulation of gene expression patterns in neuroendocrine cells on the other, have been very fruitfully explored in chromaffin cells and the related PC12 pheochromocytoma cell line, using modern molecular biological, cellular imaging and expression profiling techniques. Resolving in full the molecular events responsible for these key neuronal functions will provide the foundation for cellular neuroscience in the post-genomic era. Therefore, promoting a comprehensive functional proteomic/genomic approach to the study of the chromaffin cell is an important aim of the ISCCB. Although the ISCCB through its regular conferences provides for rapid exchange of information and ideas among active laboratories in this field, the time is clearly at hand for a concerted bioinformatics approach to the acquisition and ordering of electrophysiological, biochemical and proteomic/genomic data on the chromaffin cell. By accelerating this process the unique attributes of the chromaffin cell as a homogeneous, accessible, fully functional model of the post-mitotic neuroendocrine cell can be fully realized.
Goals:
- The work will begin approximately six months before the 11th ISCCB. At that time, a website containing links to the workshop principals and existing databases curated by them will go online to be made available to all 11-ISCCB participants. The goals of the workshop will be identified, and advance input from conference attendees will be solicited.
- The workshop will convene on the afternoon of September 7th, the final full day of the ISCCB, and will include all of the participants at the conference, representing most of the world's foremost chromaffin cell biology, electrophysiology, and signal transduction laboratories. The workshop's primary focus will be on the calcium-dependent events of secretion and neural gene transcription initiated by trans-synaptic activation, the two major professional activities of neuroendocrine cells.
- The workshop will demonstrate existing proteomic, genomic, and bioinformatic approaches to single-cell function, and databases that support them.
- The workshop will posit before the conference participants the proposal that a multi-input, dynamically curated bioinformatics-driven approach to the chromaffin cell will: (i) yield a higher quality and quantity of knowledge about neuroendocrine cell function per experiment performed through the utilization of existing data specific to the chromaffin cell than the current (literature-based) mode of gathering and re-gathering information; (ii) reveal, in a way that is convincing and obvious to practitioners, facts requiring verification and new areas most in need of further experimentation; and (iii) generate models for chromaffin cell function that raise plausibility thresholds and increase the capacity for incorporating complexity into multi-component models of neurosecretion and transcriptional regulation in neuroendocrine cells.
- A concrete plan for actualizing a user/curator driven dynamic database for assembling the chromaffin cell transcriptome and proteome(s) will be the result of the Workshop. Workshop proceedings will be included in the meeting report for the 11th ISCCB. Drs. Eiden and Hirsch will also contribute a chapter describing progress made before and during the Workshop in the Proceedings of the 11th International Society for Chromaffin Cell Biology, to be published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences according to previous agreement with the Academy.
Organization:
The workshop will be organized by Lee E. Eiden, Ph.D., NIMH-IRP and Local Organizer, ISCCB-11), and Michael D. Hirsch, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Office on Neuroinformatics, NIMH. The means of achieving the workshop's goals will be to present paradigms for dynamic databasing of properties and expression of relevant biochemical components of the chromaffin cell, computation of signal transduction pathways based on empirical and extrapolated information about the presence and activity of these components in the chromaffin cell, and the modeling of temporal and spatial relationships between calcium mobilization/influx and secretory and transcriptional events in the chromaffin cell. Participants will include:
Co-organizers:
Lee E. Eiden, Ph.D.
Section on Molecular Neuroscience, Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Regulation
National Institute of Mental Health, NIH
Bethesda MD 20892-4090, USA
Phone: 301-496-4110
Fax: 301-402-1748
Email: eiden@codon.nih.gov
Michael D. Hirsch, Ph.D.
Deputy Director, Office on Neuroinformatics, NIMH
Bethesda, Maryland 20892-9613, USA
Phone: (301) 443-1815
Fax: (301) 443-1867
Email: mhirsch@helix.nih.gov
Invited Speakers:
Susan K. Burgess, Ph.D.Cienaga Forum
14321 Twin Peaks Road
Poway, CA 92064, USA
Phone: 858-486-1932
Fax: 858-486-4157
Email: burgess@remuda.org
Nancy R. Gough, Ph.D.
Science's STKE
AAAS
1200 New York Avenue, NW, Room 1028
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-326-8949
Email: ngough@aaas.org
Christopher W. V. Hogue, Ph.D.
Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute
Toronto, M5G 1X5, CANADA
Phone: 1-416-586-4800, X2866
Fax: 1-416-586-8869
Email: hogue@mshri.on.ca
Larry Lok, Ph.D.
The Molecular Sciences Institute
2168 Shattuck Ave., 2nd Floor
Berkeley, CA 94704, USA
Phone: 510-647-0690, X6
Fax: 510-647-0699
Email: lok@molsci.org
Ion Moraru, Ph.D.
University of Connecticut Health Center
Farmington, CT 06030-1507, USA
Phone: 860-679-2908
Fax: 860-679-1039
Email: moraru@neuron.uchc.edu
Bjorn Obrink, Ph.D.
Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology
Karolinska Institute
Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: 46-87287300
Email: bjorn.obrink@cmb.ki.se
Katheryn A. Resing, Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of Colorado
914 Broadway Street
Boulder, CO 80302, USA
Phone: 303-492-8273
Email: Katheryn.Resing@Colorado.EDU
RAPPORTEUR:
Lloyd A. Greene, Ph.D.Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Department of Pathology
630 W. 168th St.
New York, NY 10032, USA
Email: lag3@columbia.edu
Consultants:
Srinivas Ravi Iyengar, Ph.D.
Professor and Acting Chair, Dept. of Pharmacology
The Mount Sinai School of Medicine
One Gustave L. Levy Place
Box 1215 New York, New York 10029
Phone: 212-659-1700
Fax: 212-831-0114
Email: r.iyengar@mssm.edu
Les Loew, Ph.D.
Professor of Physiology
Director, Center for Biomedical Imaging Technology
University of Connecticut Health Center
Farmington, Connecticut 06030-1507
Phone: 860-679-3568
Fax: 860-679-1269
Email: les@volt.uchc.edu
PROGRAM AGENDA
LIST OF ABSTRACTS
Contacts:
- Lee E. Eiden, Ph.D.,
Section on Molecular Neuroscience, NIMH.
Phone: 301-496-4110; Email: eiden@codon.nih.gov; or - Michael D. Hirsch, Ph.D.,
Office on Neuroinformatics, NIMH.
Phone: 301-443-1815; Email: mhirsch@helix.nih.gov; - The Human Brain Project, Neuroinformatics HomePage
- The Section on Molecular Neuroscience (SMN)
http://intramural.nimh.nih.gov/lcmr/smn/ - The 11th International Symposium on Chromaffin Cell Biology Homepage:
http://www.medicine.ucsd.edu/hypertension/ISCCB/home.html
