UCLA Neuroscience Program Ph.D. Admissions Neuroscience Faculty UCLA and Beyond  



Utpal Banerjee
Signal Transduction and Transcriptional Control of Neuronal and Hematopoietic Development

Work Email Address:  banerjee@mbi.ucla.edu
Home Page: http://www.mcdb.ucla.edu/Research/Banerjee/ Work: http://www.lscore.ucla.edu/research/index.html

Laboratory Address:
Boyer 364
Work Address:
621 Charles E Young Drive SouthLSB 2204/MC 160606
Boyer 356
621 Charles E Young Drive South LSB 2204/MC 160606
Phone Numbers:
310-206-5439 Office
310-825-2980 Laboratory

Selected Publications:

Owusu-Ansah, E., Yavari, A., Mandal, S.,and Banerjee, U. Distinct mitochondrial retrograde signals control the G1-S checkpoint in mitosis. Nature Genetics 2008; .
Evans, C.J., Sinenko, S., Mandal, L., Martinez-Agosto, J., Hartenstein, and Banerjee, U. Genetic Dissection of Hematopoiesis Using Drosophila as a Model System.. Advances in Developmental Biology 2008; 18: 259-299.
Mandal, L., Augusto-Martinez,J., Evans, C., Hartenstein, V., and Banerjee, U. A Hedgehog and Antennapedia dependent niche controls Drosophila hematopoietic precursors.. Nature Genetics 2007; (446): 320-324.
Raghavendra Nagaraj and Utpal Banerjee. Combinatorial signaling in the specification of primary pigment cells in the Drosophila eye.. Development 2007; 134: 825-831.
Martinez-Agosto, J., Mikkola, H. K. A., Hartenstein, V., and Banerjee, U. The hematopoietic stem cell and its niche: A comparative view. Genes and Development 2007; 21(23): 3044-60.
T.S. Vivian Liao, Gerald B. Call, Preeta Guptan, Albert Cespedes, Jamie Marshall, Kevin Yackle, Edward Owusu-Ansah, Sudip Mandal, Q. Angela Fang, Gelsey L. Goodstein, William Kim, and Utpal Banerjee. An efficient genetic screen in Drosophila to identify nuclear-encoded genes with mitochondrial function. . Genetics 2006; 174(1): 525-33.
Chen J, Call G, Milchanowski A, Banerjee U, et al. Discovery-Based Science Education: Functional. PLoS Biol . 2005; 3:e59(2): 0207-0209.
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Mandal S, Guptan P, Owusu-Ansah E, and Banerjee U Mitochondrial regulation of a Cyclin E-dependent cell cycle checkpoint as revealed by the tenured mutation in Drosophila . Developmental Cell 2005; 9: 843-854.
Jung SH, Evans C, Uemura, and Banerjee U The Drosophila lymph gland as a developmental model of hematopoiesis.. 2005; 132: 2521-2533.
Mandal L, Banerjee U, Hartenstein V Evidence for a hemangioblast and similarities between lymph gland hematopoiesis in Drosophila and mammalian AGM. Nature Genetics 2004; 36: 1019-1023.
Milchanowski AB, Henkenius AL, Narayanan M, Hartenstein V, Banerjee U Identification and characterization of genes involved in embryonic crystal cell formation during Drosophila hematopoiesis.. Genetics. . 2004; 168(1): 325-39.
Nagaraj R, and Banerjee U The little R cell that could. Int. J. Dev. Biol 2004; 48: 755-760.
Lebestky T, Jung SH, Banerjee U A Serrate-expressing signaling center controls Drosophila hematopoiesis.. Genes & development. . 2003; 17(3): 348-53.
Yan H, Canon J, Banerjee U A transcriptional chain linking eye specification to terminal determination of cone cells in the Drosophila eye.. Developmental biology. . 2003; 263(2): 323-9.
Canon J, and Banerjee U In vivo analysis of a developmental circuit for direct transcriptional activation and repression in the same cell by a Runx protein.. Genes & Development. 2003; 17: 838-843.
Evans CJ, Hartenstein V, and Banerjee U Thicker Than Blood: Conserved Mechanisms in Drosophila and Vertebrate Hematopoeisis. Developmental Cell 2003; 5: 673-690.
Evans CJ, Banerjee U Transcriptional regulation of hematopoiesis in Drosophila.. Blood cells, molecules & diseases. . 2003; 30(2): 223-8.
Kaminker JS, Canon J, Salecker I, and Banerjee U Non-autonomous control of photoreceptor axon target choice by transcriptional repression.. Nature Neuroscience 2002; 5 (8): 746-750.
Tsuda L, Nagaraj R, Zipursky SL, and Banerjee U The EGF Receptor, Sno and Ebi Control Delta Expression in Notch-mediated Induction.. Cell 2002; 110: 625-637.
Nagaraj R, Canon J, and Banerjee U Cell Fate Specification in the Drosophila eye. In Drosophila eye development.. Drosophila Eye Development 2001; 73-88.
Kaminker JS, Singh R, Lebestky T, Yan H, Banerjee U Redundant function of Runt Domain binding partners, Big brother and Brother, during Drosophila development.. Development (Cambridge, England) . 2001; 128(14): 2639-48.
Flores G, Duan H, Yan H-J, Nagaraj R, Fu W, Zou Y, Noll M, and Banerjee U. A combinatorial model of signaling in specification of cell fate.. Cell 2000; 103: 75-85.
Canon J, Banerjee U Runt and Lozenge function in Drosophila development.. Seminars in cell & developmental biology. . 2000; 11(5): 327-36.
Lebestky T, Chang T, Hartenstein V, Banerjee U Specification of Drosophila hematopoietic lineage by conserved transcription factors.. Science. . 2000; 288(5463): 146-9.
Nagaraj R, Pickup AT, Howes R, Freeman M, and Banerjee U EGF receptor signaling in the specification of the Drosophila wing margin.. Development 1999; 126: 975-985.
Pickup AT, Banerjee U The role of star in the production of an activated ligand for the EGF receptor signaling pathway.. Developmental biology. . 1999; 205(2): 254-9.
Flores G, Daga A, Kalhor H, and Banerjee U Lozenge is a global transcriptional regulator which pre-patterns cell-specific factors.. Development 1998; 125: 3681-3687.
Gupta B, Flores G, Banerjee U, and Rodrigues V Role of Lozenge in antennal patterning.. Developmental Biology 1998; 203: 400-411.
Meisner H, Daga A, Buxton J, Banerjee U, and Czech MP Interactions of Drosophila Cbl with EGF Receptors and its role in R7 photoreceptor cell development.. Mol. & Cell. Biol. 1997; 17: 2217-2225.
Majumdar A, Nagaraj R, Banerjee U strawberry notch encodes a conserved nuclear protein that functions downstream of Notch and regulates gene expression along the developing wing margin of Drosophila.. Genes & development. . 1997; 11(10): 1341-53.
Daga A, Karlovich CA, Dumstrei K, Banerjee U Patterning of cells in the Drosophila eye by Lozenge, which shares homologous domains with AML1.. Genes & development. . 1996; 10(10): 1194-205.
McCollam L, Bonfini L, Karlovich CA, Conway BR, Kozma LM, Banerjee U, Czech MP Functional roles for the pleckstrin and Dbl homology regions in the Ras exchange factor Son-of-sevenless.. The Journal of biological chemistry. . 1995; 270(27): 15954-7.
Karlovich CA, Bonfini L, McCollam L, Rogge RD, Daga A, Czech MP, Banerjee U In vivo functional analysis of the Ras exchange factor son of sevenless.. Science. . 1995; 268(5210): 576-9.
Rogge R, Green PJ, Urano J, Horn-Saban S, Mlodzik M, Shilo BZ, Hartenstein V, Banerjee U The role of yan in mediating the choice between cell division and differentiation.. Development (Cambridge, England) . 1995; 121(12): 3947-58.
Kolodkin AL, Pickup AT, Lin DM, Goodman CS, Banerjee U Characterization of Star and its interactions with sevenless and EGF receptor during photoreceptor cell development in Drosophila.. Development (Cambridge, England) . 1994; 120(7): 1731-45.
Daga A, Banerjee U Resolving the sevenless pathway using sensitized genetic backgrounds.. Cellular & molecular biology research. . 1994; 40(3): 245-51.
Baltensperger K, Kozma LM, Cherniack AD, Klarlund JK, Chawla A, Banerjee U, Czech MP Binding of the Ras activator son of sevenless to insulin receptor substrate-1 signaling complexes.. Science. . 1993; 260(5116): 1950-2.
Coyle-Thompson CA, Banerjee U The strawberry notch gene functions with Notch in common developmental pathways.. Development (Cambridge, England) . 1993; 119(2): 377-95.
Rogge R, Cagan R, Majumdar A, Dulaney T, Banerjee U Neuronal development in the Drosophila retina: the sextra gene defines an inhibitory component in the developmental pathway of R7 photoreceptor cells.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. . 1992; 89(12): 5271-5.
Bonfini L, Karlovich CA, Dasgupta C, Banerjee U The Son of sevenless gene product: a putative activator of Ras.. Science. . 1992; 255(5044): 603-6.
Rogge RD, Karlovich CA, Banerjee U Genetic dissection of a neurodevelopmental pathway: Son of sevenless functions downstream of the sevenless and EGF receptor tyrosine kinases.. Cell. . 1991; 64(1): 39-48.
Rogge RD, and Banerjee U Neural Pattern Formation in the Drosophila Eye.. Adv. in Neural Regen. Res. 1990; 309-323.
Banerjee U, and Zipursky SL The role of induction in the determination of cell fate in the Drosophila visual system.. Neuron 1990; 4: 177-187.
Banerjee U, Renfranz PJ, Pollock JA, Benzer S Molecular characterization and expression of sevenless, a gene involved in neuronal pattern formation in the Drosophila eye.. Cell. . 1987; 49(2): 281-91.
Banerjee U, Renfranz PJ, Hinton DR, Rabin BA, and Benzer S The sevenless+ protein is expressed apically in cell membranes of developing Drosophila retina: It is not restricted to cell R7.. Cell 1987; 51: 151-158.
Research Interest:

Intercellular interactions play a pivotal role in the development of the nervous system of all organisms. Recent studies have suggested that many aspects of cell-cell interactions involve common pathways for signal transduction. Members of such cascades include cellular oncogenes, whose malfunction can cause misregulation of growth and development. Our laboratory uses the developing eye of Drosophila as a model system since in this system, complex interactions between signal transduction pathways can be resolved into simpler genetic pathways. Work in our laboratory, and that of others has demonstrated that many of these pathways include Drosophila homologs of vertebrate oncogenes. The Son of sevenless (Sos) gene, first identified by mutational analysis in our laboratory has been found to be a link between tyrosine kinase receptors and Ras in many signaling systems across species. A significant aspect of our research also focuses on transcription factors that provide the context in which signaling cascades are interpreted. It is well known that a Ras derived signal could either cause a cell to divide or differentiate depending upon its predisposition. We have found that a transcription factor homologous to the acute myeloid leukemia (AML1) gene product in humans is important in allowing cells in the eye and in the hematopoietic system to interpret signals that they receive. It seems that developmental decisions involve a small number of signal transduction pathways, the outputs from which are interpreted combinatorially by the enhancer sequences of downstream genes. Our laboratory would like to understand how different signal transduction cascades are integrated to produce unique developmental responses. The first developmental systems that we concentrate on is the eye, where we are identifying novel means by which different signal transduction cascades combine to distinguish between neural and non-neural cell types. The second is hematopoiesis, where we have found that molecules similar to GATA and AML1 proteins are critically needed. Much as the stromal cell layer induces hematopoiesis in mammalian systems, we find that a source of Notch signaling in a small number of cells is critical for the maintenance of one of the hematopoietic precursors in Drosophila. Through these studies, using Drosophila as a genetic model, we hope to identify basic molecular strategies that are conserved in development across species. Zebrafish is also an excellent experimental system for genetic and embryological studies. We will exploit the similarities between zebrafish and human hematopoiesis to identify candidates for the genes mutated in the secondary steps of human leukemia. A strain of zebrafish will be engineered for predisposation to acute leukemia due to expression of a human leukemic oncogene in the hematopoietic stem cells. These mutations will be mapped, the genes molecularly cloned, and their roles in normal hematopoiesis and leukemia fully characterized. Understanding the function of these leukemia modifier genes and their human counterparts will lead to novel therapies and screening procedures in the clinic.