Scholars@Duke
Nina Tang Sherwood

Nina Tang Sherwood

Associate Professor of the Practice of Biology
Biology
nina.sherwood@duke.edu
Duke Box 90338, Science Drive, 0035 Biosci, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90338 137 Bio Sciences, 130 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708

Scholarly Works - Journal articles

Suppression of spastin Mutant Phenotypes by Pak3 Loss Implicates a Role for Reactive Glia in AD-HSP.

Journal article Frontiers in neuroscience · January 2020 Neurodegenerative mechanisms due to mutations in spastin currently center on neuronal defects, primarily in microtubule and endomembrane regulation. Spastin loss in Drosophila larvae compromises neuronal microtubule distribution, alters synap ... Full text Cite

Cold temperature improves mobility and survival in Drosophila models of autosomal-dominant hereditary spastic paraplegia (AD-HSP).

Journal article Disease models & mechanisms · August 2014 Autosomal-dominant hereditary spastic paraplegia (AD-HSP) is a crippling neurodegenerative disease for which effective treatment or cure remains unknown. Victims experience progressive mobility loss due to degeneration of the longest axons in the spinal co ... Full text Cite

Normal spastin gene dosage is specifically required for axon regeneration.

Journal article Cell reports · November 2012 Axon regeneration allows neurons to repair circuits after trauma; however, most of the molecular players in this process remain to be identified. Given that microtubule rearrangements have been observed in injured neurons, we tested whether microtubule-sev ... Full text Cite

Katanin p60-like1 promotes microtubule growth and terminal dendrite stability in the larval class IV sensory neurons of Drosophila.

Journal article The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · August 2012 Dendrite shape is considered a defining component of neuronal function. Yet, the mechanisms specifying diverse dendritic morphologies, and the extent to which their function depends on these morphologies, remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate a requirement ... Full text Cite

Loss of Drosophila melanogaster p21-activated kinase 3 suppresses defects in synapse structure and function caused by spastin mutations.

Journal article Genetics · September 2011 Microtubules are dynamic structures that must elongate, disassemble, and be cleaved into smaller pieces for proper neuronal development and function. The AAA ATPase Spastin severs microtubules along their lengths and is thought to regulate the balance betw ... Full text Cite

Functional conservation of human Spastin in a Drosophila model of autosomal dominant-hereditary spastic paraplegia.

Journal article Hum Mol Genet · May 15, 2010 Mutations in spastin are the most frequent cause of the neurodegenerative disease autosomal dominant-hereditary spastic paraplegia (AD-HSP). Drosophila melanogaster lacking spastin exhibit striking behavioral similarities to human patients suffering from A ... Full text Link to item Cite

Drosophila spastin regulates synaptic microtubule networks and is required for normal motor function.

Journal article PLoS biology · December 2004 The most common form of human autosomal dominant hereditary spastic paraplegia (AD-HSP) is caused by mutations in the SPG4 (spastin) gene, which encodes an AAA ATPase closely related in sequence to the microtubule-severing protein Katanin. Patients with AD ... Full text Cite

Long-term enhancement of central synaptic transmission by chronic brain-derived neurotrophic factor treatment.

Journal article The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · August 1999 Acute effects of neurotrophins on synaptic plasticity have recently received much attention, but the roles of these factors in regulating long-lasting changes in synaptic function remain unclear. To address this issue we studied the long-term (days to week ... Full text Cite

Neurotrophin regulation of ionic currents and cell size depends on cell context.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · May 1997 Trk receptor activation by neurotrophins is often considered to have a defined set of actions on target neurons, including supporting neuronal survival, inducing morphological differentiation, and regulating a host of target genes that specify neuronal phe ... Full text Cite

Neurotrophins differentially regulate voltage-gated ion channels.

Journal article Molecular and cellular neurosciences · January 1997 Neurotrophic factors profoundly affect neuronal differentiation, but whether they influence neuronal phenotype in instructive ways remains unclear: do different neurotrophic factors always trigger identical programs of differentiation or can each impose di ... Full text Cite