RICHARD R. ALMON
Molecular Physiology, Endocrinology and
Pharmacology
Professor Biological Sciences
Adjunct Professor Pharmaceutics
B.S 1968 MS 1970 Ph.D 1971, University of
Illinois
Postdoctoral work 1971 Duke University
Research Assistant Professor 1975 University of California/San
Diego
Professor Biological Sciences
Adjunct Professor Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy
Address Information
Richard R. Almon
Department of Biological Sciences
107 Hochstetter Hall
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
(716) 645-2363 ext: 113
To send e-mail: almon@acsu.buffalo.edu
Course Information
Go to Dr.
Almon's BIO 101 (Licit & Illicit Drugs) Course Home Page
Go
to Dr. Almon's BIO 440/540 (Experimental Endocrinology) Course
Home Page
RESEARCH SUMMARY:
Close to one half of all protein in the
body is contained in the musculature. This protein mass serves
two quite different purposes. The first and most obvious function
is mechanics (movement and posture). The second, perhaps less
obvious function, is to support general body energy metabolism.
When necessary, amino acid carbon is removed from the muscle and
used for gluconeogenesis by the liver. A structurally related
group of steroid hormones, glucocorticoids, express the systemic
demand for amino acid carbon from the musculature. The central
focus of the work in this laboratory is in understanding the
mechanism by which the systemic demand for amino acid carbon is
discriminately distributed amongst the various muscles of the
body. In general, the quality and quantity of mechanical activity
regulates protein metabolism in skeletal muscle. The character of
mechanical activity also regulates many aspects of the expressed
characteristics of a muscle. By manipulating the character of
muscle mechanical activity, it is possible to change several
expressed characteristics of a muscle. These expressed
characteristics include hormonal sensitivities, isozymes of the
contractile apparatus, and enzymes involved in energy metabolism.
By manipulating the character of mechanical activity, it is also
possible to cause a muscle to atrophy or hypertrophy. The goal of
this work is to develop quantitative models that describe the
integrative regulation of muscle protein mass and gene expression
by mechanical activity and hormones. The general approach is to
use animal manipulations to induce atrophy or hypertrophy in
selected muscles within the context of controlled changes in the
systemic hormonal milieu. We then analyze at the structural ,
cellular, and molecular levels the characteristics of the
manipulated muscles. At the present time, our particular interest
is in changes in the expression of protein and message for
several receptors, myosin isozymes, and enzymes involved in
energy metabolism. Methodologies used in the laboratory include
animal surgery, cell fractionation, equilibrium binding assays,
enzyme kinetics, RIAs, HPLC, light and fluorescent
spectrophotometry, electrophoresis, and Northern Western
hybridizations, ELISA, and quantitative rtPCR.
SELECTED PROJECTS:
Mechanical regulation of the sensitivity of muscles to
glucocorticoids, insulin and recombinant growth hormone.
Aging skeletal muscle: disuse and recovery.
Growing muscle: disuse and recovery
Collaborative projects with:
William Jusko, Pharmaceutics;
Marilyn Morris, Pharmaceutics;
Cathleen Boji, Pharmaceutics;
Luc Gosslin, Physical Therapy and Exercise Science.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
Jin Y Jin, Richard R. Almon, Debra C. DuBois, William J
Jusko
Modeling of Corticosteroid Pharmacogenomics in Rat
Liver Using Gene Microarrays
Journal Of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 306:
93-109, 2003
Richard R. Almon, Debra C. DuBois, Keri E. Pearson,
Dietrich A Stephan, and William J. Jusko
Gene Arrays and Temporal Patterns of Drug Response:
Corticosteroid Effects on Liver
Functional and Integrative Genomics 3: 171-179,
2003
Richard R. Almon, Josephine Chen, Grayson Snyder,
Debra C. DuBois, William J. Jusko, and Eric P. Hoffman
In vivo Multi-Tissue Corticosteroid Microarray Time
Series Available Online at Public Expression Profile
Resource (PEPR).
Pharmacogenomics, 4: 791-799, 2003
Josephine Chen, Po Zhao, Donald Massaro, Linda B. Clerch,
Richard R. Almon, Debra C. DuBois, William J. Jusko, Eric
P Hoffman
The PERP GeneChip data wharehouse, and implementation of
a dynamic time series query tool (SGQT) with graphical
interface.
Nucleic Acid Research 32: 1-4, 2004
Jin Y. Jin, Debra C. DuBois, Richard R. Almon, and
William J. Jusko
Receptor/Gene-Mediated Pharmacodynamic Effects of
Methylprednisolone on Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxykinase
Regulation in Rat Liver.
Journal Of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
307: 93-109 2003
Hoffman, E.P, DuBois, D.C, Hoffman,R.I., Almon, R.R.
Expression profiling and pharmacgenomics of muscle
and muscle disease
Current Opinions in Pharmacology. 3:
309-316 2003
Ramakrishnan, R., DuBois, D., Almon, R., Pyszczynski, N.,
and Jusko, W.,
Pharmacodynamics and Pharmacogenomics of
Methylprednisolone During Seven-day Infusion in Rats.
J. Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics, 300: 245-256, 2002
Almon, R.R. and DuBois, D.C.
Tyrosine Aminotransferase.
Wiley Encyclopedia of Molecular Medicine, Vol.
5. 3297-3300. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2002.
Almon, R.R. and DuBois, D.C.
Quantitation of Expressed Message for Inducible Nitric
Oxide Synthase.
Methods in Enzymology: 359: 445-452, 2003.
Almon, R.R.
Immunosuppressive/Anti-inflammatory Drugs.
PharmaTech 2002: 194-196, 2002.
Han, Bing, Shi, Wei, Sagawa, Kazuko, DuBois, Debra, C.,
and Almon Richard, R (1998)
Can the Pharmacological Use of Growth Hormone
Facilitate Recovery of Muscle From Disuse
in"Adult" and "Old" animals
1998 Gerontology Society of America, winner
of the George Sacher Prize
Sun, Y-N, McKAY, L.I., DuBois, D. C., Jusko, W.J., and
Almon, R. R. (1999)
Glucocorticoid Dynamics: A
Pharmacokinetic/Pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) Model for
Glucocorticoid Receptor Down Regulation and Glutamine
Synthetase Induction in Rat Skeletal Muscle by a Receptor
Gene Mediated Mechanism.
J. Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics. 288:720-728
Sagawa, K. DuBois, D. C., Almon, R. R., Murer, H., and
Morris (1998)
Cellular mechanisms of Renal Adaptation of Sodium
Dependent Sulfate Cotransport to Altered Dietary Sulfate
in Rats
J. Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics 287:1056-1062
Sun, Y-N, DuBois, D. C., Almon, R. R., and Jusko, W.J
(1998)
Fourth-Generation Model for Corticosteroid
Pharmacodynamics: A Model for Methylprednisolone Effects
on Receptor Gene-Mediated Glucocorticoid Receptor
Down-Regulation and Tyrosine Aminotransferase Induction
in Rat Liver. J. Pharmacokinetics and
Biopharmaceutics 26:289-317
McKay, L.I., DuBois, D. C., Sun, Y-N., Jusko, W.J., and
Almon, R. R (1997)
Corticosteroid effects in skeletal muscle: coupled
dynamic response of glutamine synthetase induction and
glucocorticoid receptor autoregulation Muscle
and Nerve 20: 1318-1320
Almon, R. R., DuBois, D. C (1996)
Drugs in Human Biology
McGraw-Hill, New York ISBN
0-07-001399-3.
Lapier, T.K., Cerny, F.S., Almon, R.R., and Burton, H.B.
(1995)
Limb immobilization affects susceptibility to
contractionduced muscle injury.
Journal of Applied Physiology
78:1065-1069
DuBois, D.C., Xu, Z.-X., McKay, L., Almon, R.R.,
Pyszcznski, N., and Jusko, W.J. (1995)
Differential dynamics of receptor downegulation and
tyrosine aminotransferase induction following
glucocorticoid treatment
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
54:237-243
DuBois, D. C., Almon, R. R. and, Jusko, W (1993)
Molar quantification of specific messenger
ribonucleic acid expression in Northern hybridization
using cRNA standards
Analytical Biochemistry 210:
140-144
Zemkova, H., Teisinger, J., Almon, R. R., Vejsada, R.,
Hnik, P. and Vyskocil, F (1990)
Immobilization atrophy and membrane properties in rat
skeletal muscle fibers
Eur. J of Physiology. Pfugers Arch 416:
126-129
Almon, R. R. and DuBois, D. C (1990)
Fiber-type discrimination in disuse and
glucocorticoid induced atrophy
Med. Sci. Sports Exerc 22: 304-311
Almon, R. R. and DuBois, D. C (1988)
Adrenalectomy eliminates both fiber-type differences
and starvation effects on denervated muscle
Am. J. Physiology 255: E850-856
DuBois, D. C. and Almon, R. R (1984)
Glucocorticoid sites in skeletal muscle:
adrenalectomy, maturation, fiber type and sex.
Am. J. Physiology 247: E118-E125
DuBois, D. C. and Almon, R. R (1980)
Disuse atrophy of skeletal muscle is associated with
an increase in number of glucocorticoid receptors
Endocrinology 107: 1649-1651
Almon, R. R. and Appel, S.H (1976)
Cholinergic sites in skeletal muscle, II. Interaction
of each site with agonists and antagonists
Biochemistry 15: 3667-3671
Almon, R. R. and Appel, S.H (1976)
Cholinergic sites in skeletal muscle, I. Denervation
effects
Biochemistry 15: 3662-3667
Almon, R.R. and Appel, S.H (1975)
Interaction of Myasthenic serum globulin with the
acetylcholine receptor
Biochem. Biophys. Acta 393: 66-77
Almon, R. R., Andrew, C. G. and Appel, S.H (1974)
Acetylcholine receptor in normal and denervated slow
and fast muscle
Biochemistry13: 5522-5528
Andrew, C.G., Almon, R.R. and Appel, S.H (1975)
Macromolecular characterization of muscle membranes:
Endogenous membrane kinase and phosphorylated protein
substrate from normal and denervated muscle
J. Biological. Chemistry 250:
3972-3980
Almon, R.R., Andrew, C.G., and Appel, S.H. (1974)
Serum globulin In Myasthenia Gravis: Inhibition of
alpha bungarotoxin binding to acetylcholine receptors
Science 186: 55-57
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