Tiago Dantas started his scientific career in 2007 as an Erasmus student investigating centrosome biology in the lab of Prof. Ciaran Morrison at the National University of Ireland in Galway. Tiago was then awarded a fellowship from FCT to continue his work in Prof. Morrison’s lab as a PhD student. His dissertation focused on the crosstalk between centrosomal proteins and the DNA damage response.
After receiving his PhD in 2012, Tiago joined the lab of Prof. Richard Vallee at Columbia University in New York, where he was funded by the AHA/ASA to study the importance of ciliogenesis and molecular motors in neural stem cell proliferation. In addition, he studied the involvement of Dyneins in human disease.
In 2018, Tiago joined IBMC/i3S to start his own line of research, focusing on the poorly characterized form of Dynein, known as Dynein-2, which is essential for retrograde intraflagellar transport inside cilia and many cell signaling pathways. His team is also interested in understanding the ciliary-dependent signaling mechanisms that regulate cell cycle progression and proliferation of neural stem cells during brain development.
Research Team:
- Carla Manuela Castro Abreu, PhD (Associate Researcher)
- Sonia Aguiar Rocha, PhD (Postdoc)
- Ana Rita De-Castro, MSc (PhD student)
- Tiago Xavier Ribeiro, MSc (PhD student)
- Vanessa Teixeira, (Co-supervised PhD student from the Gassmann Lab)
- Célia Azevedo Soares, MD, PhD (Clinical Genetics and Neurodevelopment expert)
- Maria João De-Castro, BSc, MSc (PhD student)
- Francisco Santos, BSc, MSc (PhD student from the Roberts Lab)
- Luísa Fonseca, BSc, MSc
- Maria João Monteiro, BSc (Master Student)
Alumni Team members:
- Carmen Vieira, BSc, MSc (Master project 2018-2019)
- Telma Oliveira BSc (Bachelor Student - Final year project - 2018)
- Marcos Machado, BSc (Visiting Student 2020)
- José Bernardo Gama, PhD (Postdoc 2019-2020)
- Joana Gonçalves, BSc (Visiting Student 2020-2021)
- Mariana Sousa, BSc (Summer Student 2022)
- Maria Francisca Sousa (Bachelor Student - Final year project 2023)
- Francisca Bryant-Jorge Dias BSc (Master Student 2023)
- Diogo Rodrigues, MSc (PhD student 2020-2023)
Current Funding:
FCT projects: 2022.01955.PTDC and 2022.01964.PTDC and 2023.12458.PEX
Individual positions funded: CEECIND/00771/2017 (six-year contract) to T.D., CEECIND/01985/2018 (six-year contract) to C.A., , 2021.04761.BD to T.R., UI/BD/152865/2022 to A.C., and 2023.01378.BD to MJC.
Past Funding:
FCT project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029471
In 2018, TD was also supported by the Porto Neurosciences and Neurologic Disease Research Initiative at I3S (Norte-01-0145-FEDER-000008)
SFRH/BD/143985/2019 to D.R.; BIIverao/i3S/18072207/2022 to M.S
Additional roles:
Since 2018, TD is an Editorial Board member of the Communications Biology Journal (Nature Publishing Group): https://www.nature.com/commsbio/about/editorial-board#Dantas
TD edited and organized the “Centrosomes and Cilia” collection, which is now online at Communications Biology: https://www.nature.com/collections/iadheaabic
Since 2020, TD is an Editorial Board Member of the journal Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
Since 2018, TD is an Invited Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, where he teaches the Neurodevelopment class in the Neurobiology Masters Degree
Selected as an expert by the EU Commission to evaluate Marie S. Curie Actions (Postdoctoral fellowship applications) in 2021 and 2022
Examiner/evaluating member of the Jury in the defense of 6 Master and 2 PhD theses
Selected Publications
Hot-wiring dynein-2 establishes roles for IFT-A in retrograde train assembly and motility. Cell Reports42(11):, 2023. [Journal: Article] [CI: 3] [IF: 8,8 (*)]
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113337 SCOPUS: 85174615272
Gonçalves-Santos F., De-Castro M.J.G., De-Castro A.R.G., Dantas T.J.
Building train carriages for ciliary transport: (IFT-)A complex task. Communications Biology6(1):, 2023. [Journal: Article] [IF: 5,9 (*)]
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04426-9 SCOPUS: 85146818655
De-Castro A.R.G., Rodrigues D.R.M., De-Castro M.J.G., Vieira N., Vieira C., Carvalho A.X., Gassmann R., Abreu C.M.C., Dantas T.J.
WDR60-mediated dynein-2 loading into cilia powers retrograde IFT and transition zone crossing. Journal of Cell Biology221(1):, 2021. [Journal: Article] [CI: 19] [IF: 8,1]
DOI: 10.1083/jcb.202010178 SCOPUS: 85123025569
Abreu C.M.C., Dantas T.J.
Coping with centriole loss: pericentriolar material maintenance after centriole degeneration. Communications Biology4(1):, 2021. [Journal: Article] [CI: 1] [IF: 6,5]
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-021-02243-6 SCOPUS: 85107421637
Dantas T.J.
Centrosomes and cilia: always at the center of the action. Communications Biology3(1):, 2020. [Journal: Editorial] [CI: 2] [IF: 6.3]
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-01519-7 SCOPUS: 85098475975
Khobrekar N.V., Quintremil S., Dantas T.J., Vallee R.B.
The Dynein Adaptor RILP Controls Neuronal Autophagosome Biogenesis, Transport, and Clearance. Developmental Cell53(2):141-153.e4, 2020. [Journal: Article] [CI: 46] [IF: 12,3]
DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2020.03.011 SCOPUS: 85083116287
Gonçalves J.C., Dantas T.J., Vallee R.B.
Distinct roles for dynein light intermediate chains in neurogenesis, migration, and terminal somal translocation. Journal of Cell Biology218(3):808-819, 2019. [Journal: Article] [CI: 18] [IF: 8,8]
DOI: 10.1083/jcb.201806112 SCOPUS: 85062391953
Doobin D.J., Kemal S., Dantas T.J., Vallee R.B.
Severe NDE1-mediated microcephaly results from neural progenitor cell cycle arrests at multiple specific stages. Nature Communications7:, 2016. [Journal: Article] [CI: 51] [IF: 12,1]
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12551 SCOPUS: 84984636132
Doobin D.J., Dantas T.J., Vallee R.B.
Microcephaly as a cell cycle disease. Cell Cycle16(3):247-248, 2017. [Journal: Note] [CI: 8] [IF: 3,3]
DOI: 10.1080/15384101.2016.1252591 SCOPUS: 84995519777
Dantas T.J., Carabalona A., Hu D.J.K., Vallee R.B.
Emerging roles for motor proteins in progenitor cell behavior and neuronal migration during brain development. Cytoskeleton73(10):566-576, 2016. [Journal: Review] [CI: 13] [IF: 2,2]
DOI: 10.1002/cm.21293 SCOPUS: 84962588361
Baffet A.D., Carabalona A., Dantas T.J., Doobin D.D., Hu D.J., Vallee R.B.
Cellular and subcellular imaging of motor protein-based behavior in embryonic rat brain. Methods in Cell Biology131:349-363, 2016. [Book Series: Article] [CI: 15] [IF: 1,3]
DOI: 10.1016/bs.mcb.2015.06.013 SCOPUS: 84940676248
Taylor S.P., Dantas T.J., Duran I., Wu S., Lachman R.S., Nelson S.F., Cohn D.H., Vallee R.B., Krakow D., Bamshad M.J., Shendure J., Nickerson D.A.
Mutations in DYNC2LI1 disrupt cilia function and cause short rib polydactyly syndrome. Nature Communications6:, 2015. [Journal: Article] [CI: 69] [IF: 11,3]
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8092 SCOPUS: 84935907084
Daly O.M., Gaboriau D., Karakaya K., King S., Dantas T.J., Lalor P., Dockery P., Krämer A., Morrison C.G.
CEP164-null cells generated by genome editing show a ciliation defect with intact DNA repair capacity. Journal of Cell Science129(9):1769-1774, 2016. [Journal: Article] [CI: 26] [IF: 4,4]
DOI: 10.1242/jcs.186221 SCOPUS: 84968735321
Conroy P., Saladino C., Dantas T., Lalor P., Dockery P., Morrison C.
C-NAP1 and rootletin restrain DNA damage-induced centriole splitting and facilitate ciliogenesis. Cell Cycle11(20):3769-3778, 2012. [Journal: Article] [CI: 39] [IF: 5,2]
DOI: 10.4161/cc.21986 SCOPUS: 84868020395
Dantas T.J., Daly O.M., Conroy P.C., Tomas M., Wang Y., Lalor P., Dockery P., Ferrando-May E., Morrison C.G.
Calcium-Binding Capacity of Centrin2 Is Required for Linear POC5 Assembly but Not for Nucleotide Excision Repair. PLoS ONE8(7):, 2013. [Journal: Article] [CI: 25] [IF: 3,5]
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068487 SCOPUS: 84879770210
Wang Y., Dantas T., Lalor P., Dockery P., Morrison C.
Promoter hijack reveals pericentrin functions in mitosis and the DNA damage response. Cell Cycle12(4):635-646, 2013. [Journal: Article] [CI: 14] [IF: 5]
DOI: 10.4161/cc.23516 SCOPUS: 84874594469
Dantas T., Wang Y., Lalor P., Dockery P., Morrison C.
Defective nucleotide excision repair with normal centrosome structures and functions in the absence of all vertebrate centrins. Journal of Cell Biology193(2):307-318, 2011. [Journal: Article] [CI: 47] [IF: 10,3]
DOI: 10.1083/jcb.201012093 SCOPUS: 79955516456
de Carvalho A.L.R.T., Strikoudis A., Liu H.Y., Chen Y.W., Dantas T.J., Vallee R.B., Correia-Pinto J., Snoeck H.W.
Glycogen synthase kinase 3 induces multilineage maturation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived lung progenitors in 3D culture. Development146(2):, 2019. [Journal: Article] [CI: 38] [IF: 5,6]
DOI: 10.1242/dev.171652 SCOPUS: 85060395959
Dantas T., Abreu C.M.C., De-Castro M.J.G., Grosso A.R., de Sousa Valente J., da Silva Xavier G.
25 de Abril Sempre! Portuguese Science and the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution. Communications Biology7(1):, 2024. [Journal: Editorial] [IF: 5.2 (*)]
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-06229-y SCOPUS: 85192264726