Office Address
312 Church Street
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States
Ian M.
Armitage
Professor Emeritus
Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics
My laboratory is involved with the development and application of state-of-the-art multinuclear, multidimensional magnetic resonance methods to elucidate the structure, dynamics and mechanism of action of biological macromolecules.
Research statement
My laboratory is involved with the development and application of state-of-the-art multinuclear, multidimensional magnetic resonance methods to elucidate the structure, dynamics and mechanism of action of biological macromolecules. The strategy that is frequently used to focus on a particular aspect of a complex biological system such as an enzyme's active site or intermediates in the reaction profile, is the selective observation of less abundant nuclei present naturally or incorporated by specific biosynthetic or chemical labeling procedures. Specific systems under current investigation include: metalloproteins involved in metal homeostasis, metallothioneins, which includes studies of their role in the activation of zinc-finger containing transcription factors and the physiological role of the brain specific metallothionein, MT3, in Alzheimer's disease; and molecules involved in the immune response, the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporin A (CsA), and its cytosolic receptor protein, cyclophilin (CyP) and the penultimate interaction of the CsA:CyP complex with calcineurin.
Another area of past active research involved fundamental studies of factors affecting the relaxation (MRI) of protons in tissue with applications to clinical magnetic resonance imaging techniques.
Selected publications
Burrill JS, Long EK, Reilly B, Deng Y, Armitage IM, Scherer PE, Bernlohr DA. Inflammation and ERStress Regulate Branched Chain Amino Acid Uptake and Metabolism in Adipocytes. Mol Endocrinology. (2015) 29 (3):411-420. DOI: 10.1210/me.2014-1275 PMCID: 4347289 PubMed
Symons, F. J., ElGhazi, I., Reilly, B. G., Barney, C. C., Hanson, L., Panoskaltsis-Mortari, A., Armitage, I. M. and Wilcox, G. L. (2015), "Can Biomarkers Differentiate Pain and No Pain Subgroups of Nonverbal Children with Cerebral Palsy? A Preliminary Investigation Based on Noninvasive Saliva Sampling. Pain Medicine." doi: 10.1111/pme.12545 PMCID:4332832 PubMed
Armitage, I.M., Drakenberg, T., Reilly, B. Use of 113Cd NMR to Probe the Native Metal Binding Sites in Metalloproteins: An Overview, Metal Ions Life Sciences (2013) p117-144, DOI 10.1007/978. PDF
El Ghazi, I., Martin, B. L., and Armitage, I. M., “New Proteins Found Interacting With Brain Metallothionein-3 are Linked to Secretion”, in a Special Issue on “Metals and Alzheimer’s Disease”, in International Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Volume 2011 (2011), Article ID 208634, 9 pages, 94-102. PMCID:3014675 PubMed
El Ghazi, I., Weng, S., Hu, S., Reilly, B., Lokensgard, J. R., Rock, B., Peterson, P. K., Wilcox, G. L., and Armitage, I. M., “Changes in the NMR Metabolic Profile of Human Microglial Cells Exposed to Lipopolysaccharide or Morphine”, J. of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, 5: 574-581 (2010). PubMed
El Ghazi, I., Martin, B. L., and Armitage, I. M., Metallothionein-3 is a Component of a Multiprotein Complex in the Mouse Brain", Exp Biol Med, 231, 1500-1506 (2006). PubMed
Martin, B.L. , Tokheim, A.M., McCarthy, P.T., Doms, B.S., Davis, A.A. and Armitage, I.M. "Metallothionein-3 and neuronal nitric oxide synthase levels in brains from the Tg2576 mouse model of Alzheimer's disease." Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 286, 129-136. (2006) PubMed
Lahti, D. W., Hoekman, J. D., Tokheim, A. M., Martin, B. L., and Armitage, I. M., "Identification of Mouse Brain Proteins Associated with Isoform 3 of Metallothionein", Protein Science, 14, 1151-1157 (2005). PubMed
Tokheim, A. M., Armitage, I. M., and Martin, B. L., "Antiserum Specific for the Intact Isoform-3 of Metallothionein", J. Biochem. Biophys. Methods, 63, 43-52 (2005). PubMed
Zangger, K. and Armitage, I. M., "Metallothionein" in Handbook of Metalloproteins , Volume 3, W. Bode, M. Cygler and A. Messerschmidt (eds) John Wiley & Sons, 351-364, (2004).
Cobine, P. A., McKay, R. T., Zangger, K., Dameron, C. T., and Armitage, I. M., "Solution Structure of Cu6 Metallothionein from the fungus Neurospora crass a," Eur. J. Biochem. (now FEBS J. ) 271 , 4213-4221 (2004). PubMed
Zangger, K. and Armitage, I. M. (2002) "Dynamics of Interdomain Interactions in Mammalian Metallothioneins," J. Inorg. Biochem., 88 ,(2), 135-143. PubMed
Zangger, K., Shen, G., Oz, G., Otvos, J.D. and Armitage, I.M., (2001) "Oxidative Dimerization in Metallothionein is a Result of Intermolecular Disulfide Bonds between Cysteines in the a-Domain," Biochem. J., 359, 353-360. PubMed
Oz, G., Zangger, K., and Armitage, I.M., (2001) "Three-dimensional Structure and Dynamics of a Brain Specific Growth Inhibitory Factor: Metallothionein-3," Biochemistry, 40, 11433-11441. PubMed
Zangger, K., Oz, G., Haslinger, E., Kunert, O. and Armitage, I.M., (2001) "Nitric Oxide Selectively Releases Metals from the N-terminal Domain of Metallothioneins: Potential Role at Inflammatory Sites," FASEB J., 15 (7): 1303-5. FASEB J
Zangger, K. Oz, G., and Armitage, I.M., (2000) "Re-evaluation of the Binding of ATP to Metallothioneins", J. Biol. Chem. 275:7534-8. PubMed.
Zangger, K. and Armitage, I.M. (2000) "The Accordian-HMQC:Heteronuclear Correlations Over a range of Coupling Constants," Magn. Reson. Chem. 38: 452-458.
Zangger, K., Oz, G., Otvos, J.D., Armitage, I.M. (1999) Three-dimensional solution structure of mouse [Cd7]-metallothionein-1 by homonuclear and heteronuclear NMR spectroscopy. Protein Sci. 8(12):2630-8. PubMed
Education
Ph.D., University of British Columbia, 1972