Person
Perkins, Brian
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Biography and Research Interest
Our lab studies the development of the vertebrate retina. The retina of a zebrafish is very similar to that of humans in both structure and function, so the genes required to make a zebrafish retina should be the same ones needed to make a human retina. To better understand the processes involved, we look for mutant zebrafish that have abnormal retinas. To facilitate this, transgenic zebrafish that express GFP in the rod photoreceptors have been integrated into the genetic screens for mutants. We are also looking at genes that control ciliogenesis in the retina and result in photoreceptor cell death. Future work on these mutants will help identify genes required for normal retinal development and will likely have relevance to human blindness disorders such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.
Non-Zebrafish Publications
*Intody, Z., *Perkins, B.D., Wilson, J.H., and Wensel, T.G. (2000) Blocking transcription of the human rhodopsin gene by triplex-mediated DNA photocrosslinking. Nucleic Acids Research. 28(21):4283-4290.*Co-first authors
Sargent, R.G., Meservy, J.L., Perkins, B.D., Kilburn, A.E., Intody, Z., Adair, G.M., Nairn, R.S., and Wilson, J.H. (2000) Role of the nucleotide excision repair gene ERCC1 in formation of recombination-dependent rearrangements in mammalian cells. Nucleic Acids Research. 28(19):3771-3778.
Perkins, B.D., Wensel, T.G., Vasquez, K.M., and Wilson, J.H. (1999) Psoralen photocrosslinking by triplex-forming oligonucleotides at multiple site sin the human rhodopsin gene. Biochemistry. 38(39):12850-12859.
Perkins, B.D., Wilson, J.H., Wensel, T.G., and Vasquez, K.M. (1998) Triplex targets in the human rhodopsin gene. Biochemistry. 37(32):11315-11322