Departmental Seminar: Dr. Feng Qiao

Event Date: 10.27.2014 Day: Monday Time: 12:00 pm Location: 601 Fairchild Event Type: Departmental

Department of Biological Chemistry
School of Medicine
University of California, Irvine

Title: "A short story of a long telomere: from fission yeast to melanoma"

Abstract:

At the end of the chromosome, the six-member protein complex, called shelterin, protects telomeres from nucleolytic attack and regulates telomere elongation by telomerase. I will first talk about a fundamental mechanism by which telomerase is regulated by telomere shelterin complex to maintain telomere length homeostasis, revealed from our recently study using fission yeast as a model system (Genes & Dev 2013, 27:1917). This mechanism accurately explains how mutations in a telomere protein, human POT1, and mutations that upregulate the expression of telomerase protein subunit-TERT both lead to familial melanoma. Secondly, I will present how we discovered the molecular switch that controls the transition from telomerase-dependent telomere elongation to ALT (alternative lengthening of telomeres), starting from the crystal structure of a simple, but highly conserved domain in a telomere protein.