CV Science

Frédéric Luton PhD

Course and current status

I have obtained my Ph.D. specialty Immunology at the Centre d’Immunologie Marseille-Luminy. I studied the endocytosis of the T-cell receptor/CD3 complex and its impact on the antigenic T-cell response.

I did a 5-year post-doctoral training period at UCSF in Pr. Mostov’s laboratory where I studied the regulation of the transcytosis of the polymeric immunoglobulin receptor in polarized epithelial cells.

Back to France, I have been hired as a CR2 and joined the group of Dr. M. Chabre at the Institut de Pharmacologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IPMC) where I started to study the role of the small G protein Arf6 and its exchange factor EFA6 in the development of epithelial cell polarity.

I am now co-directing the group “Arf proteins, cell morphology and membrane transport” at IPMC with Dr. M. Franco.

Scientific summary

Epithelial cell polarization involves major changes in cell morphology that require the coordinate rearrangement of the plasma membrane and the actin cytoskeleton. We have shown that Arf6 and EFA6 contribute to the organization of the apical actin ring onto which the tight junction is anchored. We are currently analyzing the signalling pathways downstream of EFA6/Arf6 that control the actin cytoskeleton reorganization and the tight junction assembly. We are also studying the molecular events involved in recruiting and activating EFA6 at the onset of the program of epithelial polarization