SCIENCE AT THE EDGE SEMINAR

QB/GEDD

Friday, March 30 at 11:30am

Room 1400 Biomedical and Physical Sciences Bldg.

Refreshments at 11:15

 

Chuan He

Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics,

The University of Chicago

 

 

Nucleic Acids Modification/Demodification and

Probes for Live Cell Imaging

 

Reversible chemical modifications on nucleic acids and proteins determine cell fates.  The five bases that comprise nucleic acids € adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil € can be chemically and enzymatically modified.  These chemical events can have significant biological consequences, particularly for gene expression.  I will present chemical strategies we have developed to enrich and sequence novel nucleic acid modifications in mammalian genome.1  Several AlkB family proteins have been identified in the human genome that may mediate nucleic acids oxidation.  Some of these proteins play critical roles in obesity/diabetes and various cancers.  I will present our recent results that reveal the exact nucleic acid substrates and cellular function of some of these intriguing enzymes.2  Based on these discoveries we propose a new mode of biological regulation that depends on reversible RNA modification, for which we termed “RNA Epigenetics”.3  I will also present our efforts to develop genetically encoded or small molecule-based probes for live cell imaging of metal ions and hydrogen sulfide.4,5

 

References

1.      Song, C.-X.; Szulwach, K. E.; Fu, Y.; Dai, Q.; Yi, C.; Li, X.; Chen, C.-H.; Zhang, W.; Jian, X.; Wang, J.; Zhang, L.; Looney, T. J.; Zhang, B.; Godley, L. A.; Hicks, L. M.; Lahn, B. T.; Jin, P.* and He, C.* Nature Biotechnol. 29, 68-72 (2011).

2.      Yi, C.; Jia, G; Hou, G.; Dai, Q.; Zhang, W.; Zheng, G.; Jian, X.; Yang, C.-G.; Cui, Q. and He, C. Nature 468, 330-333 (2010).

3.      He, C.  Nature Chem. Biol. 6, 863 (2010).

4.      Wegner, S.; Arslan, H.; Sunbul, M.; Yin, J; He, C. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 132, 2567-2569 (2010). 

5.      Qian, Y.; Karpus, J.; Kabil, O.; Zhu, H.-L.; Banerjee, R.; Zhao, J.; He, C. Nature Commun. 2, 495 (2011).

 

 

Helen Geiger, Administrative Assistant

Quantitative Biology Graduate Program and

Gene Expression in Development and Disease

Biochemistry

603 Wilson Road, Room 212

East Lansing, MI   48824

Email: [log in to unmask]

Phone:  517-432-9895

QB Website: http://www.qbi.msu.edu/

GEDD Website: http://www.gedd.msu.edu/