Ming-Jer Tsai, Ph.D. & Sophia Y. Tsai, Ph.D.

Distinguished Service Professor and Professor
Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology

Drs. Tsai and Tsai have played an essential role in creating a new field on nuclear orphan receptors. Their nomination for this award was based on major contributions to the role of COUP-TFII. They showed that COUP-TFII is overexpressed in metastatic prostate cancer and its expression is an excellent prognostic marker for aggressive prostate cancer.

They further showed that COUP-TFII could break down the barrier inducted by indolent prostate cancer and promote the progression of cancer into an aggressive state. In another study, they found that COUP-TFII controls ~50 percent of the expression of all atrium and ventricle specific genes, which suggests that COUP-TFII is the major regulator determining the specification of atrium vs ventricle during heart development.

Finally, they showed that COUP-TFII directly regulated the expression of both Eya1 and Wt1 in the metanephric mesenchyme. Their findings show that COUP-TFII plays a central role in the specification of metanephric fate and in the maintenance of metanephric mesenchyme proliferation and survival by acting as a crucial regulator of Eya1 and Wt1 expression.

Drs. Tsai and Tsai’s nomination was based on the following publications:

Qin J, Wu SP, Creighton CJ, Dai F, Xie X, Cheng CM, Frolov A, Ayala G, Lin X, Feng XH, Ittmann MM, Tsai SJ, Tsai MJ, Tsai SY. COUP-TFII inhibits TGF-ß-induced growth barrier to promote prostate tumorigenesis. Nature. 2013 Jan 10; 493(7431):236-40.

Wu SP, Cheng CM, Lanz RB, Wang T, Respress JL, Ather S, Chen W, Tsai SJ, Wehrens XH, Tsai MJ, Tsai SY. Atrial identity is determined by a COUP-TFII regulatory network. Dev Cell. 2013 May 28; 25(4):417-26.

Yu CT1, Tang K, Suh JM, Jiang R, Tsai SY, Tsai MJ. COUP-TFII is essential for metanephric mesenchyme formation and kidney precursor cell survival. Development. 2012 Jul;139(13):2330-9.