Charlesworth collaboration leads to paper, presentation

Amanda Charlesworth, assistant professor in integrative biology at the University of Colorado Denver, had a paper published in Developmental Biology: “Xenopus laevis Zygote arrest 2 (zar2) encodes a zinc finger RNA-binding protein that binds to the Translational Control Sequence in the maternal Wee1 mRNA and regulates translation” (see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22732570).

Charlesworth presented these findings and new data in a platform presentation titled, "Zygote Arrest Proteins - a new family of trans-acting factors that regulate translation of maternal mRNAs" at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Translational Control Meeting in September. These results describe a new gene expression mechanism that controls early development. The studies were co-authored with undergraduates Kevin Silva and Terry Khat, and graduate students Cassandra Kotter and Jonanthan Cook.