Fouad Lemtiri-Chlieh

Biography

Fouad got his Ph.D. in Cellular Biology (Lyon I - France). He joined Prof. Enid MacRobbie’s Biophysics Lab. (Dept. of Plant Sciences, Cambridge, UK), where he initiated the use of the patch clamp technique to study membrane ion transport mechanisms in response to the plant drought hormone (abscisic acid or aba) in guard cells. Some of his most significant contributions were to discover a signaling pathway involving inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP6) as a second messenger downstream of aba and evoking release of Calcium from the tonoplast. He is also known for his work on Cyclic Nucleotide-Gated Channels in plants and their involvement, along with Ca²⁺/Calmodulin and Nitric Oxide, in the early signaling defense mechanisms. Fouad is also interested by neuronal functions and synaptic plasticity mechanisms.

Research Interests

My role within the Center for Desert Agriculture will be to work in parallel with the Salt lab members, to investigate the molecular and functional strategies used by plants to adapt and thrive in extreme weather and soil conditions. I will be using electrophysiology and Calcium imaging techniques either ‘in planta’ or ‘in heterologous expression systems’ (e.g., Xenopus Oocytes and/or Mammalian cells such as HEK293, CHO cells…etc.).

Selected Publications

Lemtiri-Chlieh F, Ali R. Characterization of heterologously expressed transporter genes by patch- and voltage-clamp methods: Application to cyclic nucleotide-dependent responses. Methods in Molecular Biology, 1016, pp. 67-93 (2013)
eh F, Thomas L, Marondedze C, Irving H, Gehring C. Cyclic nucleotides and nucleotide cyclases in plant stress responses in Abiotic Stress Response in Plants - Physiological, Biochemical and Genetic Perspectives, Arun K. Shanker and B. Venkateswarlu (Ed.), ISBN: 978-953-307-672-0, InTech, DOI: 10.5772/24757 (2011)
Lemtiri-Chlieh F, Zhao L, Kiraly DD, Eipper BA, Mains RE, Levine ES. Kalirin-7 is necessary for normal NMDA receptor-dependent synaptic plasticity. BMC Neuroscience 12:126 (2011)
Kiraly DD, Lemtiri-Chlieh F, Levine ES, Mains RE, Eipper BA. Kalirin binds the NR2B subunit of the NMDA receptor, altering its synaptic localization and function. Journal of Neuroscience, 31:12554-12565 (2011)
Chamberlain SJ, Chen P-F, Ng KY, Bourgois-Rocha F, Lemtiri-Chlieh F, Levine ES, Lalande M. Induced pluripotent stem cell models of the genomic imprinting disorders Angelman and Prader-Willi syndromes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107:17668-17673 (2010)

Education

1990 Ph.D., Cellular Biology, Université Claude Bernard Lyon I - France (UCBL)
1986 MSc, Differentiation, Genetics and Immunology, UCBL
1985 BS, Physiology (Neurosciences major), UCBL

Professional Profile

Nov 2014 : joined the CDA (see detail of research aims outlined above)
2010 – 2014: role of nucleotide cyclases and their products (cAMP and cGMP) in plant biotic and abiotic stresses (BioMolecular laboratory, BESE, KAUST, KSA)
2004 – 2010: physiologic roles of endogenous cannabinoids and brain-derived neutrophic factor in synaptic plasticity (University of Connecticut Health Center, USA)
2001 – 2004: Molecular and electrophysiological characterization of plant cyclic nucleotide gated channels (Dept. of Plant Science, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Connecticut, USA)
1991 – 2001: Identification of the ionic and molecular signalling mechanisms, involved in stomatal closure (Dept. of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK)

Scientific and Professional Membership

The American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP)
The Society for Neuroscience (SfN)

Research Interests Keywords

Electrophysiology Sodium transport Signal transduction pathways