David C. Spray

Dr. David C. Spray is Professor of Neuroscience and Medicine (Cardiology). His research interest has focused on physiological roles of gap junction channels, how alterations in gap junction expression and function lead to disease and whether novel types of gap junction-altering drugs may be therapeutically useful. Studies generally use a variety of diverse techniques (many of which his laboratory introduced to the gap junction field), applied to both primary cultured cells (cardiac myocytes, neurons, glia, smooth muscle, hepatocytes) and cell lines chosen for expression of certain phenotypes or transfected with various wildtype and mutant connexin constructs. Methods include dual whole cell voltage clamp for the study of macroscopic and single channel junctional currents, Ca 2+ and pH imaging on cells and cell aggregates using conventional and confocal optical methods, molecular biology and biochemistry and proteomics using connexin-specific probes, high density cDNA and oligonucleotide arrays for studies on gene expression in normal and pathological nervous system and structural approaches to identify binding domains on cytoplasmic regions of connexin molecules. Additional interests are in developing high-throughput assays to exploit newly available pharmacological, small molecule and gene libraries and in bone marrow stem cell therapy for a parasite-induced dilated cardiomyopathy (Chagas’ disease).

Overall, research of his laboratory is highly interactive and cross-disciplinary; a major goal of the laboratory is to offer students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists the opportunity to apply a variety of state-of-the-art methods to the study of gap junction channel structure, regulation and interplay in cell signal transduction and to mentor young scientists in career development. With regards to such training, he is co-director (with Dr. Herbert B. Tanowitz) of the funded Fogarty Training Program in infectious diseases and is Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at City College , training both undergraduate and graduate biomedical engineering students in his lab.

Selected Publications in PubMed

Kardami E, Dang X, Iacobas DA, Nickel BE, Jeyaraman M, Srisakuldee W, Makazan J, Tanguy S and Spray DC (2007) The role of connexins in controlling cell growth and gene expression. Prog. Biophys. Mol. Biol. In press.

Iacobas DA, Iacobas S, and Spray DC (2007) Connexin-dependent transcellular transcriptomic networks in mouse brain.Progr. Biophys Molec Biol, in press.

Locovei S, Scemes E, Qui F, Spray DC, and Dahl G (2007) Pannexin1 is part of the pore forming unit of the P2X7 receptor death complex. FEBS Letters, in press.

Dermietzel, R., Spray, D.C. and Nedergaard, M. (2006) The blood-brain barrier: An integrated concept. In: Blood Brain Barriers (R. Dermietzel, D.C. Spray and M. Nedergaard, eds) Elsevier, pp. 1-8.

Nicchia, G.P., Nico, B., Camassa, L.M., Mola, M.G., Ribatti, D., Spray, D.C., Bosco, A., Svelto, M. and Frigeri, A. (2006) Responsive astrocytic endfeet: the role of AQP4 in BBB development and functioning. In: Blood-Brain Barriers (R. Dermietzel, D.C. Spray and M. Nedergaard, eds) Elsevier, pp. 209-236 .

Del Corsso C, Srinivas M, Urban-Maldonado M, Fort A, Fishman GI and Spray DC. (2006) Transfection of mammalian cells with connexins and measurement of voltage sensitivity of their gap junctions using the double whole cell voltage clamp technique. Nature Protocols, 1: 1799-1809.

Srinivas, M., Duffy, H.S., Delmar, M. and Spray, D.C. (2004) Prospects for pharmacological targeting of gap junction channels. Cardiac Electrophysiology: From Cell to Bedside. D.P. Zipes and J. Jalife, eds., pp.158-167.

Delmar, M., Duffy, H.S., Sorgen, P., Taffet, S.M. and Spray, D.C. (2004) Molecular organization and regulation of the cardiac gap junction channel Connexin43. Cardiac Electrophysiology: From Cell to Bedside. D.P. Zipes and J. Jalife, eds., pp.66-76.

Scemes E, and Spray DC (2004) The astrocytic syncytium. In: Non-Neuronal Cells of the Nervous System: Function and Dysfunction. L. Herz (ed)., Elsevier. Adv. Molec. Cell Biol 31: 165-179.

Spray, D.C., Scemes, E., Rozental, R., and Dermietzel, R. (2004) Cell to cell signaling: An overview emphasizing gap junctions. From Molecules to Networks. An Introduction to Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience. (Ed: J. Byrne & J. Roberts), Academic Press, pp. 431-458.

Hopperstad, M. G., Srinivas, M., Fort, A., and Spray, D.C. (2004) Gap junction mutations in human disease. In: Advances in Molecular and Cell Biology, Ed. D. Maue, 32:161-187.

Spray, D.C. and Simon , S.A. (2004) Thermoreceptors. Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. G. Ehrenstein, Ed.

Iacobas, D.A., Iacobas, S., and Spray, D.C. (2004) Use of cDNA arrays to explore gene expression in genetically manipulated mice and cell lines. In: Practical Methods in Cardiovascular Research, S. Dhein, F.W. Mohr and M. Delmar, editors, pp. 907-915.

Duffy, H.S., Iacobas, I., Spray, D.C. and Ashton, A. (2004) Using antibody arrays to detect protein-protein interactions of connexins. In: Practical Methods in Cardiovascular Research, Dhein, F.W. Mohr and M. Delmar, editors, pp. 916-935.