Nazzy Pakpour

DAVIS--Nazzy Pakpour, postdoctoral scholar and assistant project scientist in the Shirley Luckhart lab, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Medicine, will speak on "The Effects of Ingested Human Insulin on Malaria Transmission" from 12:10 to 1 p.m., Wednesday, March 12 in 122 Briggs Hall.

This is the last noonhour seminar of the winter quarter hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Plans call for her talk to be video-recorded for later posting on UCTV.

 

"The occurrence of type 2 diabetes in malaria-endemic regions has serious implications for the transmission of malaria parasites by mosquito vectors," said Pakpour, who is headquartered in Tupper Hall. "The Shirley Luckhart laboratory has previously shown that ingested human insulin activates the insulin/IGF-1 signaling pathway in Anopheles stephensi and increases the susceptibility of these mosquitoes to Plasmodium falciparum. In other organisms insulin can alter immune responsiveness through regulation of NF-kB transcription factors, critical elements for innate immunity that are also central to mosquito immunity. In Anopheles mosquitoes, ingested human insulin suppresses mosquito immunity by altering NF-kB-dependent immunity thereby increasing the susceptibility of mosquitoes to malaria parasites."

 

Pakpour received her bachelor of science degree in entomology form UC Davis in 1999, and her doctorate in microbiology, virology and parasitology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. She did postdoctoral work in medical microbiology and immunology from 2008 to 2013 in the Shirley Luckhart lab, and has served as an assistant project scientist there since 2008.

 

"Before college, I had a summer internship at the Smithsonian insect zoo in the National Museum of Natural History," Pakpour said, "and it was there that I became enraptured with the world of insects. Within two months of arriving at college, I was working in the integrated pest management lab (IPM) of Professor Michael Parrella and had switched my major to entomology. On his recommendation, I was hired as student technician by Professor Tom Scott and spent the next three years working with mosquitoes, which is where my interest in vector-borne diseases began."

 

As an undergraduate at UC Davis, she conducted independent research projects under a Presidential Undergraduate Research Fellowship and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Research Fellowship. "From UC Davis, I went on to gain valuable experience in infectious disease research at UC San Francisco as a staff research associate working on herpes simplex virus infection-induced pathology in the laboratory of Todd P. Margolis. At UCSF, I worked to establish a protocol for the detection of spontaneous viral reactivation in neurons."

Doctoral research
Her doctoral research was on the host immune response to Leishmania parasites, which provided her valuable experience in mammalian Immunology, as well as a solid background in parasitology and molecular biology. Specifically, her dissertation project focused on the central memory CD4⁺ T cells generated in response to Leishmania major infection. During her graduate studies, she also attended the prestigious Biology of Parasitism summer course at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Labs. "The course significantly improved my basic knowledge of Parasitology, but also allowed me to work with a variety of parasites, including Plasmodium."

Postdoctoral Research
After completing her doctorate, Pakpour accepted a post-doctoral position in Shirley Luckhart's laboratory at UC Davis. "The laboratory is broadly interested in understanding how the inflammatory factors present in human blood affect malaria parasite transmission," Pakpour noted. In joining the lab,  Pakpour shifted from her previous work on adaptive immune responses in mice to the innate immune response of mosquitoes to malaria parasite infection. "In doing so, I have mastered a new body of literature and a broad range of new techniques, including insect cell culture, in vitro cell signaling assays, and culturing of P. falciparum for mosquito infection studies. Further, I adapted our mammalian cell signaling assays for use in mosquito tissues."

Her research goal is to elucidate the bidirectional effects of malaria on Type 2 diabetes and of Type 2 diabetes on malaria. "By 2030, one in five adults on the African continent will have Type 2 diabetes, resulting in epidemic co-morbidity of these diseases," Pakpour said. "Therefore, a better understanding of the intersection of malaria infection and Type 2 diabetes will be critical for the development of future clinical interventions to reduce the burden of Type 2 diabetes complications as well as malaria transmission."

Pakpour's honors include a McBeth Memorial Entomology Scholarship, Presidential Undergraduate Research Fellowship, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Research Fellowship. She received a traineeship in Cell and Molecular Biology (5-T32-GM-07229-32) from 2002-2004 as well as a traineeship in Parasitology: Modern Approaches (5-T32-AI-007532-09) from 2004-2008. In addition, she was a finalist for the UC Davis Award for Post-doctoral Excellence in 2012 and was named an American Society for Microbiology & Burroughs/Wellcome Fund Science Teaching Fellow, 2013-2014.     

Pakpour is a member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).

Her recent publications include:

1. DrexlerAL, PietriJE, Pakpour N, HauckE, WangB, GlennonEKK, GeorgisM, RiehleMA, LuckhartS. (2014) Human IGF1 regulates midgut oxidative stress and epithelial homeostasis to balance lifespan and Plasmodium falciparum resistance in Anopheles stephensi. PLoS Pathogens (under review)

2. Pakpour N, Camp L, Smithers HM, Wang B, Tu Z, Adler SA, Luckhart SL. (2013) Protein kinase C-dependent signaling controls the midgut epithelial barrier to malaria parasite infection in anopheline mosquitoes. PLoS One. 8(10): e76535.

3. Vodovotz Y, Azhar N, Miskov-Zivanov N, Buliga M, Zamora R, Ermentrout B, Constantine G, Faeder J, Pakpour N, Luckhart S. Modeling host-vector-pathogen immuno-inflammatory interactions in malaria., in: G. An and Y. Vodovotz (Ed.), Complex Systems and Computational Biology Approaches to Acute Inflammation. Springer Science & Business Media, New York, NY. 2013. 265-279.

4. Chau JY, Lawrence JA, Tiffany CM, Mooney JP, Lokken KL, Pakpour N, Tsolis RM, Luckhart S. (2013) Malaria-associated L-Arginine deficiency induces mucosal mast cell-dependent disruption to the intestinal barrier defenses against non-typhoidal Salmonella bacteremia. Infect Immun. 81(10):3515-26.

5. Hauck E, Antonova-Koch Y, Drexler A, Pietri J, Pakpour N, Liu D, Blacutt J, Riehle MA, Luckhart S. (2013) Overexpression of phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) improves fitness and decreases Plasmodium falciparum development in Anopheles stephensi. Microbes Infect. 15(12):775–787.

6. Pakpour N, Akman-Anderson L, Luckhart SL. (2013) The effects of ingested human blood factors on arthropod immunity and physiology. Microbes Infect 15: 243-254.

7. Luckhart SL, Giulivi C, Drexler AL, Antonova-Koch Y, Sakaguchi D, Napoli E, Wong S, Price MS, Eigenheer R, Phinney BS, Pakpour N, Pietri JE, Cheung K, Georgis M, and Riehle M. (2013) Sustained Activation of Akt elicits mitochondrial dysfunction to block Plasmodium falciparum infection in the mosquito host. PLoS Pathog 9(2): e1003180.

8. Pakpour N, Corby-Harris V, Green G, Smithers H, Cheung KW, Riehle MA, Luckhart SL. (2012) Ingested human insulin inhibits the mosquito innate immune response to Plasmodium falciparum. Infect Immun. 80(6):2141-9

9. Surachetpong W*, Pakpour N*, Cheung KW, and Luckhart SL. (2011) Reactive oxygen species-dependent cell signaling regulates the mosquito immune response to Plasmodium falciparum. Antioxidant & Redox signaling. (6):943-55. (*these authors contributed equally to this manuscript)

10. Pakpour N, Cheung KW, Souvannaseng L, Concordet JP and Luckhart SL. (2010) Transfection and mutagenesis of target genes in mosquito cells by locked nucleic-acid modified oligonucleotides. J Vis Exp. (46): e2355.

11. Corby-Harris V, Drexler A, Watkins de Jong L, Antonova Y, Pakpour N, Ziegler R, Ramberg F, Lewis EE, Brown JM, Luckhart SL, and Riehle, MA. (2010) A novel strategy for controlling malaria transmission in the mosquito Anopheles stephensi. PLoS Pathogens. 6(7):e1001003.

12. Liu D, Kebaier C, Pakpour N, Beverley SM, Scott P, Uzonna JE. (2009) Leishmania major phosphoglycans influence the host early immune response by modulating dendritic cell functions. Infect Immun. 77(8):3272-83.

13. Pakpour N, Zaph C, Scott P. (2008) CD4+ T cells in Leishmania major are non-polarized and require IL-12 to become Th1 effector cells. J Immunol. 180:8299-8305.

14. Margolis TP, Elfman FL, Leib D, Pakpour N, Apakupakul K, Imai Y, Voytek C. (2007) Spontaneous reactivation of HSV-1 in latently infected murine sensory ganglia. J Virol. 81(20):11069-74.

15. Miller K, Pakpour N, Yi E, Melese M, Alemayehu W, Bird M, Schmidt G, Cevallos V, Olinger L, Chidambaram J, Gaynor B, Whitcher J, Lietman T. (2004) Pesky trachoma suspect finally caught. Br J Ophthalmol. 88 (6):750-1.

16. Massey HC Jr, Nishi M, Chaudhary K, Pakpour N, Lok JB. (2003) Structure and developmental expression of Strongyloides stercoralis fktf-1, a proposed ortholog of daf-16 in Caenorhabditis elegans. Int J Parasitol. 33(13):1537-44.

17. Luo EJ, Pakpour N, Huang EJ. (2001) Control of mouse sensory neuron development by Brn-3a and homeodomain interacting protein kinase 2. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol.60(5):513-513.

 Assistant professor Brian Johnson coordinated the winter quarter seminars. He may be reached at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu for more information.

See related link on Luckhart lab research.