Tel.: 514-340-8260 ext. 25284
anne.gatignol@mcgill.ca
 
or contact lab members:
Tel.: 514-340-8260 ext: 25251 

Dr. Anne Gatignol
 
Senior Investigator, Head of "Virus-Cell Interactions" Laboratory in the HIV/AIDS Research Axis, Lady Davis Institute
Professor Department of Medicine, Division of Experimental Medicine; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University 
 
Dr. Gatignol’s Publications Indexed on PubMed
 
Dr. Anne Gatignol obtained a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Toulouse, France. She completed a first post-doctoral training in the department of Biochemistry at the George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA and a second at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. She worked as a researcher at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale and the Cochin Institute, Paris, France. Now a senior investigator at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, and full Professor at McGill University, her current focus is on various aspects of virology and molecular biology, specifically as applied to virus-cell interactions between cellular pathways and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
 
Major Research Activities
 
Dr. Gatignol’s research focuses on the control of the cellular responses to HIV infection, which enhance or inhibit viral replication. She characterized several cellular factors that contribute to the regulation of PKR during HIV replication in lymphocytes and astrocytes. Her work continues with the characterization of this regulation in primary lymphoid and myeloid cells that are the natural targets for HIV.

Dr. Gatignol’s lab also studies the interactions between HIV and the components of the RNA interference machinery. She characterized the relationship between TRBP and Dicer proteins in the RNA-induced silencing complex. She is now analyzing the modifications of the RNAi pathway induced by the virus and their pathological consequences.

Dr. Gatignol’s lab also develops RNA-based technologies to target HIV and its cellular cofactors and inhibit viral replication. The aim of this project is to use the active molecules in gene therapy or with other delivery methods against HIV in combination with other compounds.

Recent Publications

Scarborough, R.J., Adams, K.L., Daher, A. and Gatignol, A. Effective inhibition of HIV-1 production by short hairpin RNAs and small interfering RNAs targeting a highly conserved site in HIV-1 Gag RNA is optimized by evaluating alternative length formats. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 2015. 59:5297-5305.

Daniels, S.M., Sinck, L., Ward, N.J., Melendez-Peña, C.E., Scarborough, R.J., Azar, I. Rance, E., Daher, A., Pang, K.-M., Rossi, J.J. and Gatignol, A. HIV-1 RRE RNA acts as an RNA silencing suppressor by competing with TRBP-bound siRNAs. RNA Biology. 2015. 12:123-135.

Burugu, S., Daher, A., Meurs, E.F. and Gatignol, A. HIV-1 translation and its regulation by cellular factors PKR and PACT. Virus Res. 2014. 193:65-77.

Scarborough, R.J., Lévesque, M.V., Boudrias-Dalle, E., Chute, I.C., Daniels, S.M., Ouellette, R.J., Perreault, J.-P. and Gatignol, A. A Conserved Target Site in HIV-1 Gag RNA is Accessible to Inhibition by Both an HDV Ribozyme and a Short Hairpin RNA. Mol. Ther. Nuc. Acids. 2014. 3:e178.

Clerzius, G., Shaw, E., Daher, A., Burugu, S., Gélinas, J.-F., Ear, T., Sinck, L., Routy, J.-P., Mouland, A.J., Patel, R.C. and Gatignol, A. The PKR activator, PACT, becomes a PKR inhibitor during HIV-1 replication. Retrovirology. 2013. 10:96.
Snapshot
Dr. Anne Gatignol is an internationally recognized scientist in the field of virology for her work on virus-cell interactions during HIV replication.

She was the first to clone the cDNA coding for the cellular protein TRBP and to characterize its function in the cell and during HIV replication. TRBP has important cellular functions in development, cell growth, regulation of innate cell response to infection and in RNA interference.

Her current projects involve the innate cell response to HIV infection, the development of RNA-based technologies to counteract HIV replication and the relationship between HIV and the RNA interference pathway.

She is involved in multiple collaborations domestically and throughout the world, including the United States, Australia and Europe.

She is actively involved in undergraduate and graduate teaching in the Experimental Medicine and the Microbiology and Immunology programs at McGill University, where she coordinates the Viral Pathogenesis course.
 
 
Important Links
 
 
Canadian HIV Cure Enterprise (CanCURE)
 
Support research at the Lady Davis Institute - Jewish General Hospital