Catherine Freudenreich is an American molecular biologist at Tufts University. Since 2019, Freudenreich has served as chair of the Department of Biology.[1]
Freudenreich spent her childhood in Los Alamos, New Mexico, before attending Rice University, where she graduated in 1988 with a B.A in biology.[2] She received her PhD in 1994 from Duke University, where she studied inhibitor binding sites of Type II topoisomerases in the lab of Kenneth Kreuzer, and continued to do so as a postdoctoral researcher in the same lab.[3] Freudenreich then undertook further postdoctoral research at Princeton University with Virginia Zakian, studying CTG repeats in yeast.[4][1]
After her postdoctoral studies, Freudenreich was appointed to an assistant professor position in the Department of Biology at Tufts University in 1999, where she is currently professor and department chair.[1]
Research
Freudenreich’s lab studies genome instability in yeast, with the aim of uncovering mechanisms of genetic disease and cancer. In particular, much of her research has focused on conserved trinucleotide repeat sequences, specifically CAG/CTG, and their contributions to genome fragility and instability.[5][6][7] Recently, Freudenreich’s group looked at CAG/CTG repeats in Huntington’s disease, finding that the cells’ attempts to repair CAG sequences often lead to large, deleterious deletions.[8][9][10]
Freudenreich has also notably studied how DNA repeat sequences contribute to DNA structures that can cause DNA breaks, and how the cell protects against genomic damage from these mechanisms.[5][11][12][13]
Notable publications
Freudenreich, Catherine H.; Kantrow, Sara M.; Zakian, Virginia A. (1998-02-06). "Expansion and Length-Dependent Fragility of CTG Repeats in Yeast". Science. 279 (5352): 853–856. doi:10.1126/science.279.5352.853. ISSN0036-8075.[4]
Lahiri, Mayurika; Gustafson, Tanya L; Majors, Elizabeth R; Freudenreich, Catherine H (2004-07-23). "Expanded CAG Repeats Activate the DNA Damage Checkpoint Pathway". Molecular Cell. 15 (2): 287–293. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2004.06.034. ISSN1097-2765.[6]
Polleys, Erica J.; Del Priore, Isabella; Haber, James E.; Freudenreich, Catherine H. (2023-04-29). "Structure-forming CAG/CTG repeats interfere with gap repair to cause repeat expansions and chromosome breaks". Nature Communications. 14 (1): 2469. doi:10.1038/s41467-023-37901-2. ISSN2041-1723.[9]
Zhang, Haihua; Freudenreich, Catherine H. (2007-08). "An AT-Rich Sequence in Human Common Fragile Site FRA16D Causes Fork Stalling and Chromosome Breakage in S. cerevisiae". Molecular Cell. 27 (3): 367–379. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2007.06.012. ISSN1097-2765. PMC2144737. PMID17679088.[12]
House, Nealia C.M.; Yang, Jiahui H.; Walsh, Stephen C.; Moy, Jonathan M.; Freudenreich, Catherine H. (2014-09-18). "NuA4 Initiates Dynamic Histone H4 Acetylation to Promote High-Fidelity Sister Chromatid Recombination at Postreplication Gaps". Molecular Cell. 55 (6): 818–828. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2014.07.007. ISSN1097-2765. PMC4169719. PMID25132173.[15]
Su, Xiaofeng A.; Freudenreich, Catherine H. (2017-10-03). "Cytosine deamination and base excision repair cause R-loop–induced CAG repeat fragility and instability in Saccharomyces cerevisiae". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (40). doi:10.1073/pnas.1711283114. ISSN0027-8424. PMC5635916. PMID28923949.[16]
Awards and honors
FASEB summer conference "Dynamic DNA Structures in Biology" (Chair, 2018; Co-chair, 2016)
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