Professor Dot Bennett Group Page

Bennett-Sviderskaya Laboratory

Dorothy C Bennett, Professor of Cell Biology
Division of Biomedical Sciences (box JBA) St. George's, University of London Cranmer Terrace London SW17 0RE UK e-mail dbennett@sgul.ac.uk

Looking for our cell lines? - See Wellcome Trust Functional Genomics Cell Bank

Looking for cell culture methods? See Materials and Methods used in melanocyte culture

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Molecular & Metabolic Signalling Centre - Home

Current group members:

Dr Elena Sviderskaya (Principal Research Scientist)

Dr Rebecca Collinson (Postdoctoral Scientist)

David Kallenberg (Research Assistant/ Research Student)

Sarah Totterdell (Clinical Co-ordinator - vitiligo research)

Mehnaz Hossein (Research Student)

Gaganpreet Chandan (Project Student)

Shabbir Kamali (Project Student)

Simran Sandhu (Project Student)

Tufael Wahid (Project Student)

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Our research interests:

The melanocyte, or pigment cell. (Available in a range of pleasing, natural colours, including gold if you count fish.)

- Its cancer - malignant melanoma. (Not pleasing; a common, highly malignant and rapidly progressing disease.) Molecular genetics of melanoma.

- The role of cell senescence and immortalization in melanoma development and therapy

- Genetics of melanocytes.. Pigmentation is an attractive and accessible system for genetic study; for example over 300 genetic loci required for normal pigmentation are known in the mouse.

- Pigmentary defects, like vitiligo and Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome. Their molecular and genetic basis.

- Development.of melanocytes. Characterization of the developmental precursors of melanocytes. Analysis and control of gene expression during differentiation.

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Current research projects:

Melanocyte senescence and immortalization: relations to common genetic changes in cutaneous malignant melanoma

The therapeutic potential of cell senescence pathways

Mapping and identification of vitiligo susceptibility genes (with RA Spritz, Denver)

Molecular genetics of pigmentation in the mouse

Control of differentiation and determination of immortal mouse neural crest-like stem cell lines

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The Wellcome Trust Functional Genomics Cell Bank :

Our research group maintains the Wellcome Trust Functional Genomics Cell Bank, Director Dr Elena Sviderskaya.

The bank holds over 300 immortal lines of mammalian cells of various types, including:

-over 100 lines of mouse melanocytes, mostly carrying mutations at various pigmentary loci;

- 6 lines of mouse melanoblasts, and

- around 40 lines of human melanoma cells from various stages of melanoma progression.

- 4 lines of immortalized normal human melanocytes

Many of these are freely available to researchers on request, with some restrictions on unpublished lines and lines obtained from other laboratories.

Most frequently requested line:

melan-a a/a (nonagouti, black) mouse melanocytes, from C57BL6 mice. (Shown below)

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Recent group publications (from 2008):

Gangi Setty SR, D Tenza, EV Sviderskaya, DC Bennett, G Raposo & MS Marks (2008). Cell-specific ATP7A transport sustains copper-dependent tyrosinase activity in melanosomes. Nature 454, 1142-1146.

Bennett DC (2008). Review: How to make a melanoma: what do we know of the primary clonal events? Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 21 , 27-38 .

Gray-Schopfer VC, JK Soo & DC Bennett (2008). Comment on 'Absence of senescence-associated b-galactosidase activity in human melanocytic nevi in vivo'. J. Inv. Dermatol. 128, 1581.

LaBerge GS, DC Bennett, PR Fain & RA Spritz (2008). PTPN22 is genetically associated with risk of generalized vitiligo but CTLA4 is not. J. Inv. Dermatol. 128, 1757-1762.

Crevel G, D Bennett & S Cotterill (2008). The human TPR protein TTC4 is a putative Hsp90 co-chaperone which interacts with CDC6 and shows alterations in transformed cells. PLoS ONE 3, e0001737.

Ha L, G Merlino G & EV Sviderskaya (2008). Melanomagenesis: Overcoming the barrier of melanocyte senescence. Cell Cycle 7, 1944-1948.

Palmisano I, P Bagnato, A Palmigiano, G Innamorati, G Rotondo, D Altimare, C Venturi, EV Sviderskaya, R Piccirillo, M Coppola, V Marigo, B Incerti, A Ballabio, EM Surace, C Tacchetti, DC Bennett & MV Schiaffino (2008). The ocular albinism type 1 (Oa1) protein, an intracellular G protein-coupled receptor, regulates melanosome transport in pigment cells . Hum. Mol. Genet. 17, 3487-3501.

Bennett DC (2008). Ultraviolet wavebands and melanoma initiation. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 21, 520-524.

Gorelik J, NN Ali, SHSA Kadir, M Lab, P Stojkovic, L Armstrong, EV Sviderskaya, Y Negulyaev, D Klenerman, DC Bennett, M Lako, SE Harding, M Stojkovic & YE Korchev (2008). Non-invasive imaging of stem cells by scanning-ion conductance microscopy: future perspective. Tissue Eng. 14, 311-318 .

Loftus SK, A Antonellis, I Matera, G Renaud, LL Baxter, D Reid, TG Wolfsberg, Y Chen, C-W Wang, NISC Comparative Sequencing Program, MK Prasad, SL Bessling, AS McCallion, ED Green, DC Bennett & WJ Pavan (2009). Gpnmb is a melanoblast-expressed, MITF-dependent gene. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 22 , 99-110.

Sviderskaya EV, DJ Easty, MA Lawrence, D Sánchez, YA Negulyaev, R Patel, P Anand, YE Korchev & DC Bennett (2009) . Functional neurons and melanocytes induced from immortal lines of postnatal mouse neural crest-like stem cells. FASEB J. 23, 3179-3192.

Hida T, K Wakamatsu, EV Sviderskaya, AJ Donkin, L Montoliu, ML Lamoreux, GL Millhauser, S Ito, GS Barsh, K Jimbow & DC Bennett (2009). Agouti protein, mahogunin and attractin in pheomelanogenesis and melanoblast-like alteration of melanocytes: a cAMP-independent pathway. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 22, 623-634.

Sviderskaya EV, DM Kallenberg & DC Bennett (2010). Resource. The Wellcome Trust Functional Genomics Cell Bank: holdings. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 23, 147-150.

Mishra PJ, L Ha, J Rieker, EV Sviderskaya, DC Bennett, MD Oberst, K Kelly & G Merlino (2010). Dissection of RAS downstream pathways in melanomagenesis: a role for RAL in transformation. Oncogene 29, 2449-2456.

Peres J, E Davis, S Mowla, DC Bennett , J Li, S Wansleben & S Prince (2010). The highly homologous T-box transcription factors, TBX2 and TBX3, have distinct roles in the oncogenic process. Genes and Cancer 1, 272-282.

Jin Y, SA Birlea, PR Fain, K Gowan, SL Riccardi, PJ Holland, CM Mailloux, AJD Sufit, SM Hutton, A Amadi-Myers, DC Bennett, MR Wallace, WT McCormack, EH Kemp, DJ Gawkrodger, AP Weetman, M Picardo, G Leone, A Taïeb, T Jouary, K Ezzedine, N van Geel, J Lambert, A Overbeck & RA Spritz (2010). Variant of TYR and autoimmunity susceptibility loci in generalized vitiligo. New Engl. J. Med. 362, 1686-1697.

Jin Y, SA Birlea, PR Fain, CM Mailloux, SL Riccardi, K Gowan, PJ Holland, DC Bennett , MR Wallace, WT McCormack, EH Kemp, DJ Gawkrodger, AP Weetman, M Picardo, G Leone, A Taïeb, T Jouary, K Ezzedine, N van Geel, J Lambert, A Overbeck & RA Spritz (2010). Common variants in FOXP1 are associated with generalized vitiligo . Nature Genet. 42 , 576-578.

BOOK: Lamoreux ML, V Delmas, L Larue & DC Bennett (2010). The Colors of Mice: A model genetic network. ISBN: 978-1-4051-7954-6 (Wiley, New York).

Soo JK, AD MacKenzie Ross & DC Bennett (2010, in press). Isolation and culture of melanoma and naevus cells and cell lines. In: Cancer Cell Culture, 2 nd ed., editor IA Cree ( Methods Mol. Med.). Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey.

Lee T, G Yao, DC Bennett , J Nevins & L You. Stochastic E2F activation and reconciliation of phenomenological cell-cycle models. PLoS Biology. In press .

Selected oldies (most-cited):

Bennett, DC, PJ Cooper & IR Hart (1987). A line of non-tumorigenic mouse melanocytes, syngeneic with the B16 melanoma and requiring a tumour promoter for growth. Int. J. Cancer 39, 414-418.

Bennett, DC, LA Peachey, H Durbin & PS Rudland (1978). A possible mammary stem cell line. Cell 15, 283-298.

Bennett DC & ML Lamoreux (2003). The color loci of mice - a genetic century. Pigment Cell Res. 16, 333-344.

Brooks, RF, DC Bennett & JA Smith (1980). Mammalian cell cycles need two random transitions. Cell 19, 493-504.

Jin Y, CM Mailloux, K Gowan, SL Riccardi, G LaBerge, DC Bennett, PR Fain & RA Spritz (2007). NALP1 in vitiligo-associated multiple autoimmune disease. New Engl. J. Med. 356, 1216-1225.

Bennett, DC, PJ Cooper, TJ Dexter, LM Devlin, J Heasman & B Nester (1989). Cloned mouse melanocyte lines carrying the germline coat colour mutations, albino and brown. Development 105, 379-385.

Alkhateeb A, PR Fain, A Thody, DC Bennett & RA Spritz (2003). Epidemiology of vitiligo and associated autoimmune diseases in Caucasian probands and their families. Pigment Cell Res. 16, 208-214.

Easty DJ, SP Hill, M-Y Hsu, ME Fallowfield, VA Flørenes, M Herlyn & DC Bennett (1999). Upregulation of ephrin-A1 during melanoma progression. Int. J. Cancer 84, 494-501.

Gray-Schopfer VC, SC Cheong, H Chong, J Chow, A Moss, ZA Abdel-Malek, R Marais, D Wynford-Thomas & DC Bennett (2006). Cellular senescence in naevi and immortalisation in melanoma: a role for p16? Br. J. Cancer. 95, 496-505.

Easty DJ, BA Guthrie, K Maung, CJ Farr, RA Lindberg, RJ Toso, M Herlyn & DC Bennett (1995). Protein B61 as a new growth factor; expression of B61 and up-regulation of its receptor epithelial cell kinase during melanoma progression. Cancer Res. 55, 2528-2532. [Note: B61 is ephrin A1 and the receptor is EPHA2.]

Bennett DC (1983). Differentiation in mouse melanoma cells: initial reversibility and an on-off stochastic model. Cell 34 , 445-453.

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Job vacancies

Sorry, no current vacancies.
We are always interested to hear from bright and creative researchers who are thinking about applying for their own funding/ fellowships on topics related to ours, and need a host lab.

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Other Related Web Sites

International Federation of Pigment Cell Societies (IFPCS) Home Page

(DCB is Past President of the IFPCS)