Clay Artist Ronnee Strickland

Press release for scientific journal for Ronnee Strickland.   In the work of Ronnee Strickland on dementia, it was found that, Under normal conditions, uPAR expression is negligible and uPAR knockout mice were initially found to be pheno- typically normal but further study revealed that, under challenge by making changes to the stimuli in their environment, they displayed defective recruitment and migration of neutrophils and lymphocytes (from research).   Low-level expression of uPAR has been shown in cultured microglial cells, and this expression was increased upon lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimula- tion; however, uPAR could not be detected in microglia immediately ex vivo (research).  Soluble uPAR (suPAR) is elevated in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with HIV dementia (From research)  and it seems likely that this release of suPAR into the CSF is directly related to increased central nervous system (CNS) inflammation.

Press release: The work of Ronnee Strickland pertaining to activator receptors in the brain showed that the  urokinase plasminogen activator receptor  is a cell-surface protein  at the cell surface. Binding of uPA to uPAR greatly accelerates the cleavage of plasminogen to active plasmin, and the receptor acts to concentrate this acti- vation at discrete membrane locations. This is believed to be a key event in cell adhesion and migration and has been extensively researched in cancer metastases [see (Blasi and Carmeliet, 2002) for review]. Monocytes/macrophages are important migratory cells and uPAR has been shown to be expressed by cells of the monocyte lineage (Min et al., 1992; Vassalli et al., 1992) and to be inducible by cytokines, in particular, transforming growth factor b1 (TGFb1) (Lund et al., 1991). 

  In a study in 2010,  Ronnee Strickland  demonstrated that microglia  produce certain secretory proteases which have been found to be important determinants of microglial properties, in surrounding cells and regenerative processes. In recent years, it has become clear that secretory proteases, particularly PGn-PA (plasminogen-plasminogen activator) system, work not only on catalysis of proteins in the extracellular space but also on cell growth, cell function, differentiation, proliferation and remodeling. These diverse effects may be derived from the unique structures of these enzymes, including their accesary domains. In particular, kringle domains have been shown to be important for interactions with other proteins. The results of these studies indicate that microglial secretory proteases participate to a great extent in physiological processes involving the regulation of neuronal growth, neuronal function and regenerative stages in the CNS.    You can find other research projects