Christensen Lab

publications

Christensen Lab – Northwestern University
Christensen Lab members in bold

Christensen, J.R., de Rond, T., Htet, Z.M., and Tat, J. (2026) “Monitoring Intracellular Traffic: Learning How to Measure Movement of Cellular Components.” Ebert-May, D, and Holt, E., editors. Pathways to Scientific Teaching, Volume 2. Macmillan Learning.

Driscoll, B., Fountain, M.B., Gates, I.N., Abdollahi, R., Langley, A.M., Owens, M.B., Christensen, J.R., and Salogiannis, J. (2025). Acyl-coA binding protein AcbdA regulates peroxisome hitchhiking on early endosomes. Molecular Biology of the Cell. Ahead of print. [link][bioRxiv]

Jenna’s Postdoc work at UC San Diego

Songster, L.D., Bhuyan, D., Christensen, J.R.+, and Reck-Peterson, S.L.+ (2023). Woronin body hitchhiking on early endosomes is dispensable for septal localization in Aspergillus nidulans. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 34, 1-11.+Co-corresponding authors [link][bioRxiv]

Christensen, J.R. and Reck-Peterson, S.L. (2022). Hitchhiking across kingdoms: cotransport of cargos in fungal, animal, and plant cells. Annu. Rev. Cell Dev Biol. 38,155-178. [link]

Kendrick, A.A.+ and Christensen, J.R.+ (2022). Comment: Bidirectional lysosome transport: a balancing act between ARL8 effectors. Nature Communications. 13, 5261.+Co-corresponding authors. [link]

Christensen, J.R.*, Kendrick, A.A.*, Truong, J.B., Aguilar-Maldonado, A., Adani, V., Dzieciatkowska, M., and Reck-Peterson, S.L. (2021). Cytoplasmic dynein-1 cargo diversity is mediated by the combinatorial assembly of FTS-Hook-FHIP complexes. eLife. 10:e74538. *Co-first authors [link][bioRxiv]

Mogre, S.S., Christensen, J.R., Reck-Peterson, S.L., and Koslover, E.K. (2021). Optimizing microtubule arrangements for rapid cargo capture. Biophysical Journal. 120, 4918-4931.[link][bioRxiv]

Salogiannis, J.*, Christensen, J.R.*, Songster, L.D., Aguilar-Maldonado, A., Shukla, N., and Reck-Peterson, S.L. (2021). PxdA interacts with the DipA phosphatase to regulate endosomal hitchhiking of peroxisomes. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 32, 492-503.*Co-first authors. [link][bioRxiv]

Christensen, J.R. (2021) Perspective: A WICB 50th Favorite: A conserved mechanism for mitochondria-dependent dynein anchoring. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 32, 1794. [link]

Mogre, S.S., Christensen, J.R., Niman, C.S., Reck-Peterson, S.L., and Koslover, E.K. (2020). Hitching a ride: mechanics of organelle transport through linker-mediated hitchhiking. Biophysical Journal. 118, 1357-1369. [link][bioRxiv]

Jenna’s PhD work at University of Chicago

Christensen, J.R.*, Craig, E.W.*, Glista, M.J., Mueller, D., Li, Y., Sees., J.A., Skau, C.T., Huang, S., Suarez, C., Mets, L.J.+, Kovar, D.R.+, and Avasthi, P.A.+ (2019). Chlamydomonas reinhardtii formin FOR1 and profilin PRF1 are optimized for acute rapid actin filament assembly. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 30, 3123-3125.*Co-first authors +Co-corresponding. [link][bioRxiv]

Christensen, J.R.*, Homa, K.E.*, Morganthaler, A.N., Brown, R.R., Suarez, C., Harker, A.J., O’Connell, M.E., and Kovar, D.R. (2019). Cooperation between Tropomyosin and α-actinin inhibits Fimbrin association with actin filament networks in fission yeast. eLife. 8:47279. *Co-first authors. [link][bioRxiv]

Christensen, J.R., Hocky, G.M., Morganthaler, A.N., Homa, K.E., Hitchcock-DeGregori, S.E., Voth, G.A., and Kovar, D.R. (2017). Competition between Tropomyosin, Fimbrin, and ADF/Cofilin drives their sorting to distinct actin filament networks. eLife. 6:23152. [link]

Bestul, A.J.*, Christensen, J.R.*, Grzegorzewska, A.P., Burke, T.A., Sees, J.A., Carroll, R.T., Sirotkin, V., Keenan, R.J., Kovar, D.R. (2014). Fission yeast profilin is tailored to facilitate actin assembly by the cytokinesis formin Cdc12. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 26, 283-293. *Co-first authors. [link]

Winkelman, J.D., Suarez, C., Hocky, G.M., Harker, A.J., Morganthaler, A.N., Christensen, J.R., Voth, G.A., Bartles, J.R., and Kovar, D.R. (2016). Fascin- and α-Actinin-bundled networks contain intrinsic structural features that drive protein sorting. Current Biology. 24, 2697-2706. [link]

Li, Y., Christensen, J.R.*, Homa, K.E.*, Hocky, G.M., Fok, A., Sees, J.A., Voth, G.A., Kovar, D.R. (2016). The F-actin bundler α-actinin Ain1 is tailored for ring assembly and constriction during cytokinesis in fission yeast. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 27, 1821-1833. *Contributed equally. [link]

Suarez, C., Carroll, R.T., Burke, T.A., Christensen, J.R., Bestul, A.J., Sees, J.A., James, M.L., Sirotkin, V., Kovar, D.R. (2015). Profilin regulates F-actin network homeostasis by favoring formin over Arp2/3 complex. Developmental Cell. 32, 43-53.[link]

Burke, T.A., Christensen, J.R., Barone, E., Suarez, C., Sirotkin, V., Kovar, D.R. (2014). Homeostatic actin cytoskeleton networks are regulated by assembly factor competition for monomers. Current Biology. 24, 579-85.[link]