Danny Huylebroeck
Molecular Biology
VIB Department of Molecular and Developmental Genetics, K.U.Leuven

PhD: Univ. of Ghent, Belgium, '85 Postdoc: EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany, '86-'87 Scientific Director, Dept. of Developmental Biology, '96-'06 VIB Group leader since 2007

e-mail phone +32 16 34 59 16 ADDRESS

Current team members
Group leader: Danny Huylebroeck
Staff scientist: Lieve Umans
Postdoctoral scientist: Eve Seuntjens
Ph.D. Students: Agata Stryjewska, Andrea Conidi, Ruben Dries, Silvia Cazzola, Veronique van den Berghe
Support personnel: Annick Francis, Carine Decock, Ingrid Pintens, Karin Winnepenninckx, Kathleen Coddens

Keywords
TGFB - SIP - SMAD - embryogenesis - signaling

Science
We continue to focus on interdisciplinary studies of components of the TGFb signaling system in vertebrate embryos in processes where this system tightly controls cell fate determination and cell differentiation.  Guided by both the expression domain of the genes of interest and the defects they cause upon removal or knockdown, our studies are taking us from inductive processes early in embryogenesis to later stages in development (i.e. mostly organogenesis, sometimes early post-natal development).

Our projects are molecule driven, not process and not disease driven.  This gene per gene approach proceeded in our group, for about 15 years now, according to the progressive elucidation of the TGFb signal transduction cascade (from receptors to effector proteins) by workers in the field but was obviously also influenced by the phenotypes in our animal models.  We ask what these components do in embryogenesis in these processes, and we also dedicate significant effort to document how these components act.  Our strength and international visibility lies in the combination of biochemical analysis of protein-DNA and protein-protein interaction in Smad signalling with a genetic approach in the mouse applied to TGFb family signaling.  This will remain so, despite the longer time scale and the complex nature of projects using mice.

We have meanwhile organized our research in the following:

• functional analysis and action mechanism studies of Zfhx1b/Sip1
• TGFb family receptors: signaling and trafficking
• Smad5 as mediator of TGFb/BMP signaling in the postgastrulation mouse embryo
  

Seuntjens E, Nityanandam A, Miquelajauregui A, Debruyn J, Stryjewska A, Goebbels S, Nave K, Huylebroeck D, Tarabykin V
Sip1 regulates sequential fate decisions by feedback signaling from postmitotic neurons to progenitors
NAT NEUROSCI 12, 1373-80, 2009



Seuntjens E, Umans L, Zwijsen A, Sampaolesi M, Verfaillie C, Huylebroeck D
Transforming Growth Factor type beta and Smad family signaling in stem cell function
CYTOKINE GROWTH F R 20, 449-58, 2009



Umans L, Cox L, Tjwa M, Bito V, Vermeire L, Laperre K, Sipido K, Moons L, Huylebroeck D, Zwijsen A
Inactivation of Smad5 in Endothelial Cells and Smooth Muscle Cells Demonstrates that Smad5 Is Required for Cardiac Homeostasis
AM J PATHOL 170, 1460-72, 2007



Bosman E, Lawson K, Debruyn J, Beek L, Francis A, Schoonjans L, Huylebroeck D, Zwijsen A
Smad5 determines murine amnion fate through the control of bone morphogenetic protein expression and signalling levels
DEVELOPMENT 133, 3399-409, 2006



Peeters H, Voz M, Verschueren K, De Cat B, Pendeville H, Thienpont B, Schellens A, Belmont J, David G, Van de Ven W, Fryns J, Gewillig M, Huylebroeck D, Peers B, Devriendt K
Sesn1 is a novel gene for left-right asymmetry and mediating nodal signaling
HUM MOL GENET 15, 3369-77, 2006

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