Jenna Christensen Intracellular transport diversity and regulation

Research Interests

Exploiting biological diversity to uncover fundamental principles of intracellular transport

The goal of my lab is to understand how cargos such as organelles, vesicles, mRNAs, and protein complexes are transported in cells. We are taking an interdisciplinary approach to (1) understand the fundamental principles behind how cells transport cargos, (2) determine how those fundamental principles are adapted across varying cellular contexts, and (3) discover novel modes of intracellular transport. My lab uses the fungal kingdom as a model for intracellular transport diversity. We start with comparative genomics across fungal species to generate hypotheses about how gene duplication, loss, and functional diversification impact cargo transport in different fungal species, with the goal of understanding the underlying roles of these transport-related genes. We then use comparative cell biology of relevant fungal species and human cell lines and biochemical reconstitution/single molecule TIRF microscopy to decipher mechanisms behind intracellular transport diversity and regulation. By looking broadly across biology, we can begin to understand which principles of intracellular transport are universal, which are adapted to different contexts, and potentially discover novel modes of intracellular transport. More information about my lab can be found at thechristensenlab.com.

Selected Publications

Driscoll, B., Fountain, M.B., Gates, I.N., Abdollahi, R., Langley, A.M., Owens, M.B., Christensen, J.R., and Salogiannis, J. (2025). Acyl-coA binding protein AcbdA regulates peroxisome hitchhiking on early endosomes. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 36:br26, 1-16.

Woronin body hitchhiking on early endosomes is dispensable for septal localization in Aspergillus nidulans. Songster LD, Bhuyan D, Christensen JR, and Reck-Peterson SL. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 2023 June 1;34(7):br9.

Hitchhiking Across Kingdoms: Cotransport of Cargos in Fungal, Animal, and Plant Cells. Christensen JR and Reck-Peterson SL. Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology. 2022 October;38:155-178.

Cytoplasmic dynein-1 cargo diversity is mediated by the combinatorial assembly of FTS–Hook–FHIP complexes. Christensen JR, Kendrick AA, Truong JB, Aguilar-Maldonado A, Adani V, Dzieciatkowska M, and Reck-Peterson SL. eLife. 2021 December 9:e74538.

PxdA interacts with the DipA phosphatase to regulate peroxisome hitchhiking on early endosomes. Salogiannis J, Christensen JR, Songster LD, Aguilar-Maldonado A, Shukla N, and Reck-Peterson SL. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 2021 March 15;32(6):492-503.

Hitching a Ride: Mechanics of Transport Initiation through Linker-Mediated Hitchhiking. Mogre SS, Christensen JR, Niman CS, Reck-Peterson SL, and Koslover EF. Biophysical Journal. 2020 March 24;118(6):1357-1369.

 

View all publications by Jenna Christensen listed in the National Library of Medicine (PubMed).