Overview
Dr. Suliman is an expert in the molecular and cell biology of mammalian diseases, particularly in the molecular regulation of oxidant inflammatory responses in the heart and lung. She has a strong interest and expertise in the transcriptional control of cell metabolism, especially mitochondrial biogenesis and mitochondrial-mediated apoptosis and necrosis. Her recent publications have focused on the redox-regulation of nuclear transcription factors involved in both mitochondrial biogenesis and cellular adaptation to oxidative and nitrosative stress. Specifically, she has undertaken promoter analyses of nuclear respiratory factors-1 and -2 that indicate that these transcription factor genes are controlled by redox-regulated signaling networks activated by reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, and carbon monoxide. Dr. Suliman and her colleagues have reported that the cancer chemotherapeutic, doxorubicin, disrupts cardiac mitochondrial biogenesis through mitochondrial oxidant production, which promotes intrinsic apoptosis, while heme oxygenase-1 up-regulates adaptive mitochondrial biogenesis and opposes apoptosis through close regulation of mitochondrial ROS signaling by physiological CO production, thus forestalling fibrosis and cardiomyopathy. Most recently I have been defining the role of mitochondrial transcription factors in regulating cell survival, proliferation and differentiation including in embryonic stem cells and pluripotent cells.