• Hatch Multi-State Research Formula Fund, 2010-2014, Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Skeletal Muscle Growth and Differentiation

• 6,869,632 - Method of improving drip loss in fresh beef, pork, and poultry, granted Mar 2005.
• 6,020,012 - Method of improving the water-holding capacity, color, and organoleptic properties of beef, pork, and poultry, granted Feb 2000.

• "Rbm20 regulates titin alternative splicing as a splicing repressor"

Li S, Guo W, Dewey CN, et al., Nucleic Acids Res. Jan 2013. Titin, a sarcomeric protein expressed primarily in striated muscles, is responsible for maintaining the structure and biomechanical properties of muscle cells. Cardiac titin undergoes developmental size reduction from 3.7 megadaltons in neonates to primarily 2.97 megadaltons in the adult. This size reduction results from gradually increased exon skipping between exons 50 and 219 of titin mRNA. Our previous study reported that Rbm20 is the splicing factor responsible for this process. In this work, we investigated its molecular mechanism. Pubmed/NLM.

• "Impact of titin isoform on length dependent activation and cross-bridge cycling kinetics in rat skeletal muscle"

Mateja RD, Greaser ML, de Tombe PP, Biochim Biophys Acta. Aug 2012. The magnitude of length dependent activation in striated muscle has been shown to vary with titin isoform. Recently, a rat that harbors a homozygous autosomal mutation (HM) causing preferential expression of a longer, giant titin isoform was discovered (Greaser et al. 2005). Here, we investigated the impact of titin isoform on myofilament force development and cross-bridge cycling kinetics as function of sarcomere length (SL) in tibialis anterior skeletal muscle isolated from wild type (WT) and HM. Pubmed/NLM.

• "Protein electrophoresis in agarose gels for separating high molecular weight proteins"

Greaser ML, Warren CM, Methods Mol Biol. 869: 111-118 2012. Animals; Arthropod Proteins/chemistry; Arthropod Proteins/isolation & purification; Astacoidea; Buffers; Dogs; Electrophoresis, Agar Gel/methods; Humans; Molecular Weight; Muscle Proteins/chemistry; Muscle Proteins/isolation & purification; Rats; Silver Staining/methods; Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate/chemistry; Surface-Active Agents/chemistry. Pubmed/NLM.

• "RBM20, a gene for hereditary cardiomyopathy, regulates titin splicing"

Guo W, Schafer S, Greaser ML, et al., Nat Med. 18 (5): 766-773 May 2012. Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing/genetics; Animals; Base Sequence; Cardiomyopathy, Dilated/genetics; Humans; LIM Domain Proteins/genetics; Molecular Sequence Data; Muscle Proteins/genetics; Mutation; Protein Kinases/genetics; RNA Splicing; RNA-Binding Proteins/genetics; RNA-Binding Proteins/physiology; Rats; Rats, Inbred BN; Rats, Inbred F344. Pubmed/NLM.

• Intra-University Collaboration: Biostatistics and Medical Informatics
• Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University medical Center, Cell and Molecular Physiology
• University of Illinois College of Medicine, Physiology and Biophysics

• Muscle Biology Laboratory