Faculty

Main Content

Mallikarjuna Reddy Pabbidi, DVM, PhD

Assistant Professor
Office: N433
(601) 984-1611

Research interests

  • Vascular smooth muscle electrophysiology
  • Isometric and isobaric measurement of resistance and conductance vessels.
  • Calcium imaging
  • Cell imaging and quantification of membrane proteins

Current research

Blood vessels have an intrinsic ability called "myogenic response" that helps to auto regulate blood flow to an organ despite fluctuations in blood pressure. Myogenic response depends on the concerted action of ion-channels and contractile machinery in the vascular smooth muscle cell ultimately leading to contraction of blood vessels. Relevant ion- channels in smooth muscle are being explored, including voltage-dependent calcium channels, inward rectifier potassium channels, calcium-sensitive BK, IK, SK channels, voltage-dependent potassium channels, ATP-sensitive potassium channels, TRPV4 channels, ryanodine receptor channels and IP3R channels. The ultimate goals are to understand the basic mechanisms for ion-channel control of local cerebral blood flow, peripheral resistance and using this information to understand pathologies such as stroke, kidney failure and possible new therapeutic interventions.

There are three major research areas in the lab:

  • To understand the mechanisms by which ion-channels regulate myogenic response in arterioles isolated from the brain or kidney.
  • To understand sexual dimorphism in the function and regulation of ion-channels in smooth muscle cells of resistance and conduit arteries in the brain and kidney.
  • To understand how conduit vessels such as aorta or carotid vessels differ from resistant arteries in their response to vasoactive chemicals.

We employ several techniques to accomplish our research goals, including:

  • Pressure and tension myography to study resistance and conduit vessels in response to pressure and chemicals;
  • Conventional patch clamp methodologies to monitor membrane potential and ion currents (whole cell and single channel) in isolated vascular smooth muscle cells;
  • Ca2+ fluorescence technique, video microscopy to measure specific changes in intracellular Ca2+ levels;
  • Molecular biochemical studies and cell imaging to identify the molecular composition of the channels and their association with non-channel proteins.

Selected publications

Pabbidi MR, Mazur O, Fan F, Farley JM, Gebremedhin D, Harder DR, Roman RJ. Enhanced large conductance K+ channel (BK) activity contributes to the impaired myogenic response in the cerebral vasculature of Fawn Hooded Hypertensive rats. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2014 Apr 1;306(7):H989-H1000. doi:0.1152/ ajpheart. 00636.2013.Epub 2014 Jan 24.