My research focuses primarily on a novel protein tyrosine phosphatase, PTPrQ. This phosphatase is particularly interesting because it was identified as a receptor-like phosphatase that demonstrates only weak tyrosine phosphatase activity, however it exhibits strong inositol phosphatase activity. This gene has several transcripts as seen by northern blot, the major two being full-length and short rQ. I have demonstrated promoter activity in an intron, accounting for the shorter transcript. I am working to characterize tissue expression of the various PTPrQ transcripts (PCR and RACE) and proteins (immunoprecipitation and Western blot). Once characterized, I will work on finding the ligand for the proteins with extracellular domains and how ligand binding of the receptor affects signaling.