Breanne Sparta
Quantitative cell biologist who trained in John Albeck's lab at UC Davis, where live single-cell imaging showed that the mTORC1-TFEB signalling axis tracks nutrients and growth factors continuously, and then moved to UCLA as a postdoctoral fellow
Postdoctoral fellow, Eric Deeds lab, University of California, Los Angeles (IRACDA program, 2021 cohort) · PhD, University of California, Davis (John Albeck lab, papers 2015–2023) · BS in Biochemistry, Northeastern University
Deeds Lab, University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California, USA) ↗
Breanne Sparta was first author of a 2023 eLife paper in this Atlas (SPA2023). Most experiments on mTORC1, the growth-control complex, grind up millions of cells and measure an average at a few time points. This study filmed single living human breast epithelial cells (MCF10A) carrying fluorescent reporters, and followed TFEB, a regulator of lysosomes and autophagy that mTORC1 holds outside the nucleus, together with AMPK and AKT activity. mTORC1-TFEB signalling adjusted smoothly to amino acids and insulin whether they were given alone, one after the other or together. At normal body levels of amino acids the three signals rose and fell in step, and these graded changes tracked how fast the cells were making protein. The results come from one cultured cell line.
Sparta studied biochemistry at Northeastern University (BS) and earned a PhD at the University of California, Davis, in John Albeck's lab, with a thesis on how growth and metabolism are coordinated in single living cells. That work also used live-cell reporters. As first author of a 2015 Journal of Biological Chemistry paper, Sparta showed that pulses of ERK activity triggered by the growth factor EGF depend on mechanisms at the receptor. Sparta co-authored a 2017 methods chapter on imaging ERK signalling with fluorescent biosensors, a 2017 modelling study of oscillations in MAPK signalling, and a 2021 Cell Metabolism paper on how single cells pass through temporary phases of resistance to drugs that block mitochondrial energy production.
Sparta then joined Eric Deeds' lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, as a postdoctoral fellow in the IRACDA program (2021 cohort). The research there asks how gene expression varies between cells in multicellular organisms.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | M | Continuous sensing of nutrients and growth factors by the mTORC1-TFEB axis SPA2023 First author: used live single-cell imaging to show that mTORC1-TFEB signalling adjusts continuously to amino acids and insulin and tracks protein synthesis. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Breanne Sparta.
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- John G. Albeck Measures mTORC1, AMPK and other metabolic signals in single living cells, following how they change over minutes and hours
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