Dr. Kirk L Mecklenburg

Dr. Kirk L Mecklenburg

Department Chair & Associate Professor of Genetics
B.S. Kansas University (1980)
Ph.D. The Ohio State University (1987)
Office: Northside 132A
Phone: 574-520-4808
Email: kmecklen@iusb.edu

Research

Our lab is actively investigating the function of novel genes expressed in the nervous system. We use the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model system for analyzing cDNA's that are specifically transcribed in the retina.  We have evidence that these genes are also present in humans. Our long range goal is to determine the role of the genes in the visual system of Drosophila in order to predict their function in humans.

We have sequenced the DNA for two of the Drosophila eye genes, and their genomic clones.  We have probed tissue sections and showed that the cDNAs are abundantly expressed in the retina.  Our recent data have localized one of the molecules to the 72E region on the polytene chromosome.  Currently we are attempting to isolate the corresponding human gene by PCR amplifying the sequence from the appropriate cDNA library.

Publications

• Smith, Stephen M., Fuerst, Paul, and Kirk L. Mecklenburg (1996). Mitochondrial DNA sequence of cytochrome oxidase II from Calliphora erythrocephala: Evolution of Blowflies. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 89:28-36

• Moran, John V., Mecklenburg, Kirk L., Sass, Philip, Belcher, Sott M., Mahnke, Donna, Lwein, Alfred, and Perlman, Philip (1994). Splicing defective mutants of the COX1 gene of yeast mitochondrial DNA: initial definition of the maturase domain of the group II intron AI2. Nucleic Acids Research 22:2057-4076

• Moran, John V., Wernette, Catherine M., Mecklenburg, Kirk L., Butow, Ronald A., and Perlman, Philip S. (1992). Intron 5-alpha of the COX1 Gene of Yeast Mitochondrial DNA is a Mobile Group I Intron. Nucleic Acids Research 20:4069-4076

• David R. Hyde, Kirk L. Mecklenburg, John A. Pollock, Thomas S. Vihtelic, and Seymour Benzer (1990). Twenty Drosophila Visual System cDNA Clones: One is a Homolog of Human Arrestin. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 87:1008-1012

• Palazollo, M., Hyde, D., VijayRaghavan, K., Mecklenburg, K., Benzer, S., and Meyerowitz, E. (1989). Use of a New Strategy to Isolate and Characterize 436 Drosophila cDNA Clones Correstponding to RNAs Detected in Adult Heads but Not in Early Embryos. Neuron 3:527-539

• Peebles, C., Perlman, P., Mecklenburg, K., Petrillo, M., Tabor, J., Jarrell, K., and Cheng, H. L. (1986). A self-splicing RNA excizes an intron lariat. Cell 44:213-223