DF/HCC Program Affiliation

Cancer Cell Biology

Research Abstract

We study the mechanism of eukaryotic gene expression using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system. Biochemical, molecular, and genetic techniques are used to study the basal and regulatory transcription factors required for positioning RNA polymerase II at a promoter. We also study the mechanism of mRNA capping, the first modification of the nascent transcript. We have found that transcription is coupled to mRNA-specific processing events by the association of capping and polyadenylation enzymes to a phosphorylated form of the RNA polymerase.

Publications

• Keogh MC, Mennella TA, Sawa C, Berthelet S, Krogan NJ, Wolek A, Podolny V, Carpenter LR, Greenblatt JF, Baetz K, Buratowski S.The Saccharomyces cerevisiae histone H2A variant Htz1 is acetylated by NuA4.Genes Dev 2006 Mar 15;20(6):660-5.
  16543219
• Vasiljeva L, Buratowski S.Nrd1 interacts with the nuclear exosome for 3' processing of RNA polymerase II transcripts.Mol Cell 2006 Jan 20;21(2):239-48.
  16427013
• Keogh MC, Kurdistani SK, Morris SA, Ahn SH, Podolny V, Collins SR, Schuldiner M, Chin K, Punna T, Thompson NJ, Boone C, Emili A, Weissman JS, Hughes TR, Strahl BD, Grunstein M, Greenblatt JF, Buratowski S, Krogan NJ.Cotranscriptional set2 methylation of h
  16286008
• Kim M, Krogan NJ, Vasiljeva L, Rando OJ, Nedea E, Greenblatt JF, Buratowski S.The yeast Rat1 exonuclease promotes transcription termination by RNA polymerase II.Nature 2004 Nov 25;432(7016):517-22.
  15565157
• Ahn SH, Kim M, Buratowski S.Phosphorylation of serine 2 within the RNA polymerase II C-terminal domain couples transcription and 3' end processing.Mol Cell 2004 Jan 16;13(1):67-76.
  14731395