Dr. Youri Pavlov, Professor, Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer, UNMC, will present the seminar “Role of iron-sulfur protein in genome integrity” on Tues. November 19, 2013 at 4:00 PM in N172 Beadle Center.

My laboratory is interested in the maintenance of genome stability during replication, repair, recombination, transcription and editing. In particular, we want to understand the mechanisms of global and region-specific control of mutagenesis in different cell types and along chromosomes in eukaryotes. Evolutionary determined mutation rates depend on levels of endogenous and environmental DNA damage and editing, the efficiency of the repair and high fidelity of chromosomal replication. Impairment of DNA and chromatin metabolism often enhances mutation rates and drastically decreases viability due to cancer onset. Examples are defects in: 8-oxo-dGTPase; proofreading by DNA polymerases delta and epsilon in mice and humans; in mismatch repair in families with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer; in DNA lesion bypass in XP-V patients in humans. It is also emerges that elevated levels of DNA editing enzymes are mutagenic and can cause cancer.