Thomas C. Pesacreta 

1975 B.S. (Agronomy) Virginia Polytechical Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA

1982. Ph.D. (Plant Biology) Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

The emphasis of my research is twofold: to study structure at the level of light and electron microscopy, and to characterize the biochemical nature of the proteins that constitute the basis of structure. To this end, I have investigated several biological systems including cytoskeletal actin bundles in conifer roots, clathrin coated membranes in algae and higher plants, phosphatases in sugar beet source leaves, and the membrane skeleton in Drosophila embryos.

My present research interest is plant myosin, a non-muscle cytoskeletal protein that is essential in biological processes such as cyclosis and cytokinesis. Myosin has been extensively studied in animal systems, but analogous research has not been done for plants. Given the extensive differences that exist between the biochemistry, physiology, and structure of plants and animals, it is very probable that we will require unique explanations, rather than simple extrapolations from the current literature, if we are to understand the characteristics and function of plant myosin.

This research involves the formulation of a purification procedure for plant myosin, a comparison of plant and animal myosins, the generation of plant myosin specific polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies, and the use of these antibodies to localize myosin in several tissues. Some of the methodologies that we use are scanning confocal microscopy, gel and ion-exchange liquid chromatography, SDS-PAGE electrophoresis, "Western blotting", and in the future we will begin nucleotide sequence analysis of plant myosin clones. 

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