Xinsheng Gao
Geneticist who, in Duojia Pan's lab, used fruit flies and mammalian cells to show that the tumour suppressors Tsc1 and Tsc2 restrain TOR signalling and make it sensitive to amino acids
Department of Physiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (Duojia Pan lab, papers 2000–2005, at the time of the study)
Tuberous sclerosis complex is an inherited disease in which benign tumours grow in the brain, skin, kidneys and other organs. It is caused by faults in either of two genes, TSC1 or TSC2. Around 2002 the big question was how these two tumour suppressors hold back growth. In the Atlas study GAO2002 in Nature Cell Biology, Xinsheng Gao, first author in Duojia Pan's lab at UT Southwestern in Dallas, showed in fruit flies and mammalian cells that Tsc1 and Tsc2 can physically associate with TOR, the nutrient-sensing kinase, and act upstream of it in fly genetic tests. Cells lacking Tsc1 or Tsc2 had more activity of S6K, a kinase that TOR switches on, and this rise depended on TOR. Normally S6K switches off when cells are starved of amino acids, but cells without Tsc1 or Tsc2 kept it on. The work placed the TSC proteins in the nutrient-sensing TOR pathway, which later helped make rapamycin-type drugs a treatment option for tuberous sclerosis.
PubMed lists seven papers from 2000 to 2005 in which Gao and Pan appear together on fly growth control and the Tsc genes. No later record could be tied to this person with confidence, because the name is common, so the affiliation shown is the one at the time of the study.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | M | Tsc tumour suppressor proteins antagonize amino-acid-TOR signalling GAO2002 First author: showed in flies and mammalian cells that Tsc1 and Tsc2 act upstream of TOR and that cells lacking them keep S6K active even without amino acids. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Xinsheng Gao.
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- Duojia Pan Fly geneticist best known for work on the Hippo organ-size pathway. In 2002 his group reported that the Tsc1 and Tsc2 tumour suppressors act upstream of TOR to restrain S6K activity, in flies and mammalian cells
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