Amanda A. Amodeo
Assistant Professor
Appointments
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate Program
Area of Expertise
Molecular and Cellular Biology/Molecular Genetics/Developmental Biology
Biography
My lab seeks to address fundamental biological questions about how cells and organs measure their sizes in developmental contexts. Our work focuses on the understanding the molecular pathways that regulate and coordinate the cell cycle, transcription, and chromatin regulation. Specifically, we have focused on the early embryos of the fruit fly Drosophila where "normal" cell size control is turned on its head. While in most contexts a cell needs to grow to double its original size before dividing in order to maintain a constant cell volume, the early embryo starts off as a huge cell that undergoes reductive cleavage divisions without growth to restore more typical cell sizes. We take advantage of the exquisite quantitative imaging, genetics, and genomics of the fly embryo to interrogate how cells know when they have reached the correct cell size to stop dividing and begin differentiating. We also employ classic molecular biology, biochemistry, and mathematical modeling to refine and develop our understanding of the system.
Education
B.S. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Ph. D. Stanford University
Publications
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Shindo Y, Balachandra S, Amodeo AA. 2025. Visualizing developmental dynamics of nuclear morphology and transport machinery in Drosophila. Dev Biol.Oct;526:61-69. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2025.07.001. Epub 2025 Jul 2. PMID: 40614892
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Balachandra S, Amodeo AA. 2025. Bellymount-pulsed tracking: a novel approach for real-time in vivo imaging of Drosophila abdominal tissues. G3 (Bethesda) Jan 8;15(1):jkae271. doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkae271. PMID: 39556480
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Bhatt AD, Brown MG, Wackford AB, Shindo Y, Amodeo AA. 2024. Local nuclear to cytoplasmic ratio regulates chaperone-dependent H3 variant incorporation during zygotic genome activation. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2024 Jul 16:2024.07.15.603602. doi: 10.1101/2024.07.15.603602. PMID: 39071352
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Balachandra S, Sarkar S, Amodeo AA. The Nuclear-to-Cytoplasmic Ratio: Coupling DNA Content to Cell Size, Cell Cycle, and Biosynthetic Capacity. 2022. Annu Rev Genet. Nov 30;56:165-185. doi: 10.1146/annurev-genet-080320-030537. PMID: 35977407
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Shindo Y, Brown MG, Amodeo AA. 2022. Versatile roles for histones in early development. Curr Opin Cell Biol. Apr;75:102069. doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2022.02.003. PMID: 35279563
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Shindo Y and Amodeo AA. 2021. Modeling the role for nuclear import dynamics in the early embryonic cell cycle. Biophysical Journal
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Shindo Y and Amodeo AA. 2021. Excess histone H3 is a competitive Chk1 inhibitor that controls cell-cycle remodeling in the early Drosophila embryo. Current Biology.
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Syed S, Wilky H, Raimundo J, Lim B, and Amodeo AA. 2021. The nuclear to cytoplasmic ratio directly regulates zygotic transcription in Drosophila through multiple modalities. PNAS.
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Chari S, Wilky H, Govindan J, and Amodeo AA. 2019. Histone concentration regulates the cell cycle and transcription at the mid-blastula transition. Development.
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Shindo Y and Amodeo AA. 2019. Dynamics of free and chromatin-bound Histone H3 during early embryogenesis. Current Biology.
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Amodeo AA & Skotheim JS. 2015. Cell size control. In: Heald R, Wake D, and Hariharan I, editors. Size Control in Biology, from Organelles to Organisms. New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
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Amodeo AA, Jukam D, Straight AF, and Skotheim JM. 2015. Histone titration by DNA sets the threshold for the mid-blastula transition in Xenopus. PNAS.
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