Ma Qiufu

Qiufu Ma, Ph.D., is a Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. His laboratory focuses on the neural circuits involved in the senses of pain, itch, touch, and temperature. According to the population coding hypothesis, each somatic sensory modality is processed along a specific neural circuit, or labeled line, but the emergence of a specific sensation often involves cross-talk among these lines due to the polymodal nature of most sensory neurons. For example, both pain- and itch-related sensory neurons respond to capsaicin, the pungent ingredient in hot chili peppers, but capsaicin injection in humans evokes only pain due to dominant suppression of itch by pain.

Research in the Ma lab centers on two related areas: understanding genetic programs controlling the assembly of specific sensory labeled lines, and characterizing neural circuits underlying cross interaction among distinct labeled lines by developing new genetic tools to mark and ablate specific neuronal populations in the dorsal spinal cord.

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Ma's landmark discoveries include the identification of Neurogenin, a vertebrate neuronal determination gene (Cell, 1996). He later demonstrated that Neurogenin1 and Neurogenin2 control two distinct waves of neurogenesis in the developing dorsal root ganglia (Genes & Development, 1999). His work also revealed that the homeobox genes Tlx3 and Tlx1 act as post-mitotic selector genes determining glutamatergic over GABAergic cell fates (Nature Neuroscience, 2004) and that Lbx1 and Tlx3 are opposing switches in determining GABAergic versus glutamatergic transmitter phenotypes (Nature Neuroscience, 2005). Additionally, he showed that Runx1 determines nociceptive sensory neuron phenotype and is required for thermal and neuropathic pain (Neuron, 2006), and that VGLUT2-dependent glutamate release from nociceptors is required to sense pain and suppress itch (Neuron, 2010). ADSFAEQWER353423413434

• Ma Q, Kintner C, Anderson DJ. Identification of neurogenin, a vertebrate neuronal determination gene. Cell. 1996;87(1):43-52.
• Ma Q, Fode C, Guillemot F, Anderson DJ. NEUROGENIN1 and NEUROGENIN2 control two distinct waves of neurogenesis in the developing dorsal root ganglia. Genes Dev. 1999;13(13):1717-28.
• Cheng L, Arata A, Mizuguchi R, Qian Y, Bouchard M, Luo P, Chen CL, Gray PA, Arata S, Shirasawa S, Busslinger M, Goulding M, Onimaru H, Ma Q. Tlx3 and Tlx1 are post-mitotic selector genes determining glutamatergic over GABAergic cell fates. Nat Neurosci. 2004;7(5):510-7.
• Cheng L, Samad OA, Xu Y, Mizuguchi R, Luo P, Shirasawa S, Goulding M, Ma Q. Lbx1 and Tlx3 are opposing switches in determining GABAergic versus glutamatergic transmitter phenotypes. Nat Neurosci. 2005;8(11):1510-5.
• Chen CL, Broom DC, Liu Y, de Nooij JC, Li Z, Cen C, Abdel Samad OA, Jessell TM, Woolf CJ, Ma Q. Runx1 determines nociceptive sensory neuron phenotype and is required for thermal and neuropathic pain. Neuron. 2006;49(3):365-77.
• Liu Y, Abdel Samad O, Duan B, Zhang L, Tong Q, Lopes C, Ji RR, Lowell B, Ma Q. VGLUT2-dependent glutamate release from nociceptors is required to sense pain and suppress itch. Neuron. 2010;68(3):543-56.
• Ma Q. Labeled lines meet and talk: population coding of somatic sensations. J Clin Invest. 2010;120(11):3773-8.
• Liu Y, Ma Q. Generation of somatic sensory neuron diversity and implications of sensory coding. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2011;21(1):52-60.
• Woolf CJ, Ma Q. Nociceptors—noxious stimulus detectors. Neuron. 2007;55(3):353-64.
• Zhang X, Bao L, Ma Q. Tlx1 and Tlx3 coordinate specification of dorsal horn pain-modulatory peptidergic neurons. J Neurosci. 2008;28(17):4037-46. (in Chinese)
• 陈蕾, 马秋富. Runx1与伤害性感觉神经元分化的研究进展. 生理科学进展. 2008;39(2):105-108.