Carol Heckman

Research Interests:

Certain cell signaling pathways are implemented by assembling their components on scaffolds and/or restricting their lateral mobility in a membrane.  This makes it difficult to study the nodes where pathways interact using traditional biochemical techniques.  Cells display dozens or even hundreds of molecules at their surface, that receive incoming signals and activate one or more intracellular signaling pathways.  The challenge to cell biologists is to discover how the cells are sorting, editing, and refining this information at the next level.  The aim of my group is to discover principles of how cells deal with such complexity.

Selected Publications:

Heckman, C.A., Ademuyiwa, O.M. & Cayer, M.L. How filopodia respond to calcium in the absence of a calcium-binding structural protein: non-channel functions of TRP. Cell Commun. Signal. 20: 130 (26 pages), 2022. (full text)

Heckman, Carol. (2021). Tolansky Interference Method. 10.13140/RG.2.2.13679.97446.

Heckman, Carol & Biswas, Tania & Dimick, Douglas & Cayer, Marilyn. (2020). Activated Protein Kinase C (PKC) is Persistently Trafficked with Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) Receptor. Biomolecules. 10. 1288. 10.3390/biom10091288.

Heckman, Carol & Cayer, Marilyn & Ademuwiya, Omolade. (2019). Filopodia Dynamics are Affected by Cation Flux through TRP Channels. Biophysical Journal. 116. 43a-44a. 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.278.

Impact Publications:

Heckman, Carol & Wade, J.. (2018). Protein kinase C: Its role in RTK processing. 13. (full text)

Mukhopadhyay, C., Triplett, A., Bargar, T., Heckman, C., Wagner, K. and Naramura, M. (2016). Casitas B-cell lymphoma (Cbl) proteins protect mammary epithelial cells from proteotoxicity of active c-Src accumulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (full text)

Amarachintha, S.P., Ryan, K. J., Cayer, M., Boudreau, N., Johnson, N. and Heckman, C. (2014). Effect of Cdc42 domains on filopodia sensing, cell orientation, and haptotaxis. Cell Signal. S0898-6568(14)00379-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cellsig.2014.11.025. (full text)

Varghese, M., Gorsevski, P., Cayer, M. L., Boudreau, N. and Heckman, C. A. 2012. Unraveling the determinants of protrusion formation. International Journal of Cell Biology, Article ID 402916, 16 pages. (full text)

Heckman, C.A., M. Varghese, M.L. Cayer, N.S. Boudreau. 2012. Origin of ruffles: Linkage to other protrusions, filopodia and lamellae. Cellular Signaling 24: 189-198. (full text)

Uppal, S. O., Voronine, D. V., E.Wendt, C. A. Heckman. 2010. Morphological fractal analysis of shape in cancer cells treated with combinations of microtubule-polymerizing and -depolymerizing agents. Microscopy and Microanalysis 16: 472-477. (full text)