Peter King MD

Much of Dr. King’s work over the years has focused on mechanisms of posttranscriptional regulation of cytokines and chemokines in different model systems, including spinal cord injury, ALS, stroke and glioblastoma. This work really began during a post-doctoral fellowship in Dr. Jack Keene’s laboratory after neurology residency training. Dr. King gravitated toward CNS applications by setting out to clone the human ortholog of the Drosophila ELAV RNA binding protein expressed in neurons. During the two-year fellowship, without prior experience in basic research, he was able to successfully clone Hel-N1 and demonstrate for the first time that this family binds to AU-rich elements present in the 3’ UTRs mRNAs. This experience taught him an important lesson on technology as his success hinged upon the use of PCR, a technique newly discovered! After fellowship training, Dr. King picked the project back up and investigated the role of Hel-N1 and closely related HuR in CNS cancer. They investigated the RNA binding properties of HuR and found that it could bind avidly to the 3 ‘UTR of major pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-1 and IL-6 and upregulate their expression. This galvanized his thinking that HuR may be a viable therapeutic target for neuroinflammation. Dr. King has thus directed his focus to diseases that are driven by acute and/or chronic inflammation including neuropathic pain (NP). His investigation into NP began through a collaboration with Dr. Robert Sorge who is the director of the PAIN Collective at UAB research in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at UAB.

Education

• MD,  Duke University
• Resident, Case Western Reserve University
• Resident, Duke University
• Fellow, Duke University
• Fellow, Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Research Interests

• Protein regulation of RNA stability and translational efficiency of growth factor and cancer-related genes, and impact on development, stress response and cancer growth
• Impact of posttranscriptional regulation on astrocyte production of inflammatory mediators
• ALS causing mutations in superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) lead to a gain of RNA binding function
• Biomarker ability to track disease progression in human ALS
• Molecular mechanisms of kinesin motors

Recent Publications

• Kwan T, Kazamel M, Thoenes K, Si Y, Jiang N, King PH. Wnt antagonist FRZB is a muscle biomarker of denervation atrophy in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Sci Rep. 2020;10(1):16679. Epub 2020/10/09. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-73845-z. PubMed PMCID: PMC7541525.
• Si Y, Cui X, Crossman DK, Hao J, Kazamel M, Kwon Y, King PH. Muscle microRNA signatures as biomarkers of disease progression in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Neurobiol Dis. 2018;114:85-94. Epub 2018/02/28. doi: 10.1016/j.nbd.2018.02.009. PubMed PMID: 29486297.
• Wang J, Leavenworth JW, Hjelmeland AB, Smith R, Patel N, Borg B, Si Y, King PH. Deletion of the RNA regulator HuR in tumor-associated microglia and macrophages stimulates anti-tumor immunity and attenuates glioma growth. GLIA. 2019;67(12):2424-39. doi: 10.1002/glia.23696. PubMed PMID: 31400163.
• Chellappan R, Guha A, Si Y, Kwan T, Nabors LB, Filippova N, Yang X, Myneni AS, Meesala S, Harms AS, King PH. SRI-42127, a novel small molecule inhibitor of the RNA regulator HuR, potently attenuates glial activation in a model of lipopolysaccharide-induced neuroinflammation. GLIA. 2021;n/a(n/a). Epub 2021/09/18. doi: 10.1002/glia.24094. PubMed PMID: 34533864.
• Ardelt AA, Carpenter RS, Iwuchukwu I, Zhang A, Lin W, Kosciuczuk E, Hinkson C, Rebeiz T, Reitz S, King PH (2017). Transgenic expression of HuR increases vasogenic edema and impedes functional recovery in rodent ischemic stroke. Neurosci Lett. 2017. Epub 2017/10/07. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2017.09.062. PubMed PMID: 28982595.
• Complete List of Published Work: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/peter.king.1/bibliography/public/