Contact information Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 7000 East Avenue, L-452 Livermore, CA 94550 email: loots1@llnl.gov phone: 925 423 0923

Education

Post-Doctoral Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2000-2003

Ph.D., Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California, at Berkeley, 2000

B.S., Genetics/Developmental Biology, University of California, at Irvine, 1996

 

 

 

Research interests

Developmental and Comparative Genomics, Transcriptional Regulation, Skeletal and Limb Development, Tissue Engineering, Sclerosteosis and Van Buchem Disease, Genetics of Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis, Pharmacogenomics, Cancer Metastasis.

Our group is interested in understanding how functional elements are encoded in the human genome and how proteins and transcriptional regulatory elements orchestrate tissue-specific gene regulatory networks during organogenesis. We are also interested in how noncoding regulatory elements cause congenital skeletal defects and contribute to susceptibility to bone and cartilage degenerative disorders such as osteoporosis and arthritis. Our main emphasis is on limb and skeletal development and congenital skeletal abnormalities. We use comparative genomics, genetic engineering, bioinformatics analysis, RNAseq, ChipSeq and other high throughput genomic approaches to test our genomic-driven hypotheses.

Projects

 

    Development of transgenic technologies in the frog X. tropicalis for high throughput enhancer validation

    Identification and characterization of tissue-specific transcriptional regulatory elements

    Genetics of Van Buchem and sclerosteosis, two hyperosteosis disorders caused by mutations in sclerostin

    Characterization of limb, cartilage, and bone enhancer elements

    Identifying therapeutics for preventing post-traumatic osteoarthritis

 

 Most recent publications/Abstracts:

1. Chahine NO, Genetos D, Collette NM, Thomas C, Loots GG (2014).  Carbon Nanotubes in Cartilage Bioengineering. Tissue Eng May 20.

2. Fischer NO, Weilhammer D, Thomas C; Hwang M, Corzett M, Cheri L, Mayer W, Urbin S, Collette, NM, Chang JC, Loots GG, Rasley A, Blanchette CD.(2014) Evaluation of nanolipoprotein particles (NLPs) as an in vivo delivery platform. Plos One 9(3):e93342.

3. Loots GG, Bergmann A, Hum NR, Oldenburg CE, Wills AE, Hu N, Ovcharenko I, Harland RM. (2013) Interrogating Distal Enhancers in Tol2-mediated Xenopus Transgenics. Plos One 2013 8(4):e61651.

4. Collette NM, Yee C, Murugesh D, Sebastian A, Taher L, Gale NW, Economides AN, Harland RM, Loots GG (2013).  Polydactyly in Sost and SostDC1 double knock-out mice. Dev Bio 383(1):90-105.

5. Hudson B, Kulp K and Loots GG. (2013). Prostate cancer invasion and metastasis: Insights from mining genomic data. Brif Funct Genomics 12(5):397-410.

 

Related publications/Abstracts:

1. Chahine NO, Blanchette CD, Thomas C, and Loots GG (2013). Mechanical Response of Chondrocytes to Cyclic Loading is Age Dependent. Plos One 8(4):e61651.

2. Collette NM, Genetos D, Economides A, Xie L, Shahnazari M, Yao W, Lane N, Harland RM and Loots GG. (2012). Targeted Deletion of Sost Distal Enhancer Increases Bone Formation and Bone Mass. PNAS 109(35):14092-7

3. Loots GG, Keller H, Leupin O, Murugesh D, Collette NM and Genetos DC. (2012). TGF-beta Regulates Sclerostin Expression via the ECR5 enhancer. Bone 50(3):663-9.

4. Cain CJ, Rueda R, McLelland B, Collette NM, Loots GG and Manilay JO. (2012). Absence of Sclerostin Adversely Affects B Cell Survival. JBMR 27(7):1451-61.

5. Taher L, Collette NM, Murugesh D, Ovcharenko I and Loots GG. (2011). Global Gene Expression Analysis during Limb Development. Plos One 6(12):e28358.

6. Genetos D, Yellowley CE and Loots GG. (2011).  Prostaglandin E2 signals through PTGER2 to regulate Sclerostin Expression. Plos One 6(3):e17772.

7. Collette NM, Genetos D, Murugesh D, Harland RM and Loots GG. (2010) Genetic Evidence that Sost inhibits Wnt Signaling in the Limb. Dev Bio 342(2):169-79.

8. Pennachio LA, Loots GG, Nobrega MA and Ovcharenko I. (2007). Predicting Tissue-Specific Enhancers in the Human Genome.  Gen Res 17(2):201-211.

9. Loots GG, Ovcharenko IV, Pachter L, Dubchak I and Rubin EM. (2002) rVISTA for comparative sequence based discovery of functional transcription factor binding sites. Gen Res 12(5):832-9.

10. Loots GG, Locksley RM, Brion CM, Wang ZE, Miller W, Rubin EM and Frazer KA.  (2000) Cross-species noncoding sequence comparisons identify a coordinate regulator of interleukin 4, 5 and 13. Science 288:136-140.