Bulent Mutus
Professor and Department Head
| Phone: | (519) 253-4232 x 3526 or 3594 |
| Email: | mutusb@uwindsor.ca |
| Office: | Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of Windsor |
| Website: | Browse |
Research: The Mutus lab investigates 1) the development of analytical methods to measure levels of NO(NOx) and H2S; 2) discovering specific amino acids within the proteins that are susceptible to S-nitrosylation and S-sulfhydration; and 3) the identification of specific S-nitrosylated- and S-sufhydrated-proteins that are pivotal control points in a given pathology. An example protein is the cell membrane-resident enzyme neutral sphingomyelinase (NSMase). When normal cells are exposed to stress (such as chemotherapeutic drugs), NSMase is stabilized and activated making more of a compound (creamide) causes the cells to self destruct (apoptosis). The Mutus lab has recently discovered that cancer cells, when stressed, inactivate NSMase by S-nitrosylating it thereby avoiding the self destruct signal and surviving the stress. Currently, his lab is utilizing analytical/proteomic approaches to identify NSMase’s -S-N=O-susceptible regions with a view of preventing the inactivation of NSMase in cancer cells, thereby rendering them more susceptible to killing by chemotherapeutics.