Welcome to Peter J. Roy's Lab home page at the University of Toronto!
Here you will find an introduction to the biology we are studying and the general problems we are working hard to solve. The Roy lab has two main interests, both of which capitalize on the simplicity of the tiny nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans
as an experimental animal model system. Click here
to learn more about C. elegans
and why it is a great model system.
Our Interest in Developmental Biology:
One half of my lab studies how specialized muscle membrane extensions, called muscle arms, are guided to the nerve cords during the development of the neuromuscular junction—a feature that allows nerves to control the contraction of muscles. Scroll over the yellow cell above to see where the muscle arms are.
While muscle membrane remodeling and extension is not unique to worms (click here
for examples), in no other model system is this process more obvious than in C. elegans
(click here
to learn more about the details of muscle arm extension in C. elegans).
Our main goal in studying muscle arm extension is to better understand how gene products guide migrating cells and cell extensions to their target destinations. In doing so, we also hope to identify new genes required for guided cell migration. Understanding guided cell migration is important because it is a process that is fundamental to animal development and is essential in the growth and metastasis of tumors. Furthermore, studying muscle membrane extensions may lead to important insights into neuromuscular or other diseases in humans. For example, we recently discovered a conserved protein involved
in muscle membrane extension in worms that is disrupted in a human
disease. By learning more about how this protein works in worms, we hope
to provide important insights into the etiology of this syndrome in
humans.
Our work on muscle arm extension is generously supported by National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC), which is made possible through the charitable work of the Terry Fox Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society.
Our Interest in Chemical Biology:
The other half of my lab is working to develop new small molecule tools that facilitate the study of animal biology. Like a therapeutic drug, a small molecule that alters the activity of a specific protein can be a very useful tool to understand the role of that protein in the development and physiology of the animal. It can be applied to the animal at different doses, or removed from the animal at any time, allowing exquisite control of protein activity. Furthermore, if the protein target is involved in disease, a small molecule modifier of that protein could have potential therapeutic value as a drug or drug-lead (click here
and here
for a couple of great reviews about chemical biology).
We have performed a systematic analysis of small molecule structures to better understand what type of molecule can accumulate in worm tissue, and then investigated what happens to those small molecules once inside the animal. In addition, we have screened over 17,000 small molecule structures for the induction of defects in the worm in order to identify new small molecule tools to study C. elegans
biology (click here
to learn more about our screen). For example, one of the new molecules we discovered, which we call nemadipine, antagonizes calcium channels not only in worms, but in vertebrates as well. Using nemadipine, we were able to demonstrate previously uncharacterized roles of certain calcium channels in the cells used to lay eggs in worms. Nemadipine is part of a family that includes several FDA-approved drugs that are also calcium channel antagonists. However, nemadipine has special properties that allow us to genetically investigate how this important class of drugs interacts with calcium channels (click here
to learn more about nemadpine).
Our chemical biology work is supported by an operating grant from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). In addition, we have received generous support for the purchase of infrastructure from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Ontario Innovation Trust (OIT), and the NCIC.