Research Interest

The laboratory has four main projects: 1) Cardiovascular Biology and Aging with emphasis in coronary and cerebral arteries, 2) Src tyrosine kinases signaling complexes and vascular tone in vessels subject to thrombotic episodes, 3) Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology of Ion channels with focus on voltage and Ca-activated K channels, and 4) Remodeling of Cardiac and Smooth Muscle K channels by Sex Hormones during pregnancy and during functional cardiac hypertrophy. Our studies are focused mainly to understand the molecular, cellular and genetic mechanisms underlying the regulation of cardiovascular K channel remodeling that occurs during aging and under the influence of sex hormones. The activity of this type of ion channels defines smooth muscle tone and cardiac contractility, and thereby, they have a key role on the control of blood pressure, and cardiac function. Our studies will provide tools for Molecular Medicine and will help understand and treat cardiovascular disease in the growing aging population.

Representative Publications

Alioua A., Mahajan A., Nishimaru K., Zarei M. M., Stefani E., and Toro L. Coupling of c-Src to Large Conductance Voltage- and Ca2+-activated K+ channels as a New Mechanism of Agonist-Induced Vasoconstriction. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 99(22):14560-14565, 2002.

Eghbali M., Toro L. and Stefani E. Diminished Surface Clustering and Increased Perinuclear Accumulation of Large Conductance Ca2+-Activated K+ Channel in Mouse Myometrium with Pregnancy. J. Biol. Chem. 278(46):45311-453117, 2003.

Kazuhide Nishimaru, Mansoureh Eghbali, Rong Lu, Jure Marijic, Enrico Stefani and Ligia Toro. Functional and Molecular Evidence of MaxiK Channel β1 Subunit Decrease with Coronary Artery Ageing in the Rat. J. Physiol. London. 559(3):849–862, 2004.

Masoud M. Zarei, Mansoureh Eghbali, Abderrahmane Alioua, Min Song, Hans-Günther Knaus, Enrico Stefani, and Ligia Toro. An Endoplasmic Reticulum Trafficking Signal Prevents Surface Expression of a Voltage and Ca2+-activated K+ Channel Splice Variant. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 101(27):10072-10077, 2004