Margarita de la Llera-Moya, PhD
- Department: Pediatrics
- Division: GI/Nutrition
- Address:
34th & Civic Center Boulevard
Abramson, Room 1102F
Philadelphia, PA 19104 - Phone: (215)590-0584
- Email: moya@email.chop.edu
Research Summary:
My research interests center on the different ways cells excrete excess cholesterol, an essential component of cell membranes in the body. Much of my work has focused on identifying factors in the blood that can remove cholesterol from cells for transport to other sites in the body. Because only liver cells can break down cholesterol, the transport of cholesterol from tissue cells to the liver is very important in order to maintain cell cholesterol balance. Disruption of this transport leads to unhealthy accumulations of cholesterol in tissues such as blood vessels. This condition is a hallmark of atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart disease and stroke. My goal is to better understand the process of cholesterol removal from cells with the hope that this knowledge will lead to more effective treatment and prevention of atherosclerosis.
I am currently studying how high-density lipoprotein (HDL) interacts with the cell surface receptor SR-BI to remove excess cellular cholesterol. Most of my studies are done using cells in culture and our group has developed many techniques to either cholesterol-deplete or enrich cells. I measure cholesterol movement between cells and HDL using radioactivity or by measuring changes in cell cholesterol mass using gas liquid chromatography. I also use recently-developed techniques to introduce the gene for SR-BI and other receptors into cultured cells in order to study their effect on cell cholesterol release to HDL. My current projects involve the study of mutations of SR-BI to establish structure-function relationships and the study of the regulation of cholesterol synthesis in cells that have SR-BI.
