Art Arnold

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Art Arnold

Distinguished Professor

Email: arnold@ucla.edu
Office: 1129 TLSB
Phone: (310) 825-2169
Website: https://arnoldlab.ibp.ucla.edu/

Biography

I graduated from Grinnell College, and received my PhD from Rockefeller University. Since 1976, I have been a professor at UCLA. I was Chair of the Department of Physiological Science (now Integrative Biology & Physiology) at UCLA (2001-2009), and Director of the Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology of the Brain Research Institute (2005-2017). I was inaugural President of the Society of Behavioral Neuroendocrinology (1997-1999), and received the SBN Lehrman Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. I was founding Editor-in-Chief of Biology of Sex Differences (2010-2018).


Research Interests

The Arnold lab studies biological factors that make males and females different. Many diseases affect the two sexes differently, implying that one sex is protected or harmed by factors in one sex. It is important to identify the mechanisms underlying the sex difference as one strategy to identify factors that are protective. These factors might be targets for novel therapies.

Many sex differences in physiology and disease are caused by sex hormones coming from the testes or ovaries. We have found, however, that some sex differences also are caused by genes on the sex chromosomes that act outside of the gonads. We are interested in constructing a general theory of sex determination and sexual differentiation that applies to any tissue.

We have used several animal models that offer significant advantages for understanding the factors that cause sex bias in physiology. One is the Four Core Genotypes model, in which the type of the gonad of the animal (testes or ovaries) is not related to its complement of sex chromosomes (XX or XY). This model allows comparing mice that have different sex chromosomes but the same type of gonad, to find traits that are influenced by the complement of sex chromosomes.


Education

A.B., Psychology, Grinnell College 1967
Ph.D., Neurobiology and Behavior, The Rockefeller University 1974


Selected Publications

Arnold AP. 2019 Rethinking sex determination of non-gonadal tissues. Current Topics in Developmental Biology 2019; 134:289-315.

Itoh Y, Golden LC, Itoh N, Matsukawa MA, Ren E, Tse V, Arnold AP, Voskuhl RR. 2019 The X-linked histone demethylase Kdm6a in CD4+ T lymphocytes modulates autoimmunity. Journal of Clinical Investigation 130:3852-3863.

Arnold AP, Disteche CM. 2018 Commentary: Sexual inequality in the cancer cell. Cancer Research 78: 5504-5505.

Umar S, Cunningham CM, Itoh Y, Moazeni S, Vaillancourt M, Sarji S, Centala A, Arnold AP, Eghbali M. 2018 The Y chromosome plays a protective role in experimental hypoxic pulmonary hypertension. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 197(7):952-955.

Mauvais-Jarvis F, Arnold AP, Reue K. 2017 A guide for the design of pre-clinical studies on sex differences in metabolism. Cell Metabolism 25:1216-1230.

Arnold AP. 2017 A general theory of sexual differentiation. Journal of Neuroscience Research 95:291-300. Online 7 November 2016.

Arnold AP, Cassis LA, Eghbali M, Reue K, Sandberg K. 2017 Sex hormones and sex chromosomes cause sex differences in the development of cardiovascular diseases. Artheriosclerosis Thrombosis & Vascular Biology 37:746-756.

Burgoyne PS, Arnold AP 2016 A primer on the use of mouse models for identifying direct sex chromosome effects on non-gonadal tissues that cause sex differences in traits. Biology of Sex Differences 7:68.

Du S., Itoh N, Askarinama S, Hilla H, Arnold AP, Voskuhl RR. 2014 XY sex chromosome complement, compared with XX, in the CNS confers a greater neurodegenerative response to injury. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 111:2806-2811.

Chen X, McClusky R, Chen J, Beaven SW, Tontonoz P, *Arnold AP, *Reue K (*equal last authors). 2012 The number of X chromosomes causes sex differences in adiposity and metabolism in mice. PLoS Genetics 8(5):e1002709. Epub 2012 May 10