James Haber

Last updated
James Haber
Born
James E. Haber

1943 [1]
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [1]
Education Harvard University, AB; University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D. 1970
Known forDNA repair mechanisms
Awards National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal of the Genetics Society of America
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemistry, Genetics
Institutions University of Wisconsin, Brandeis University
Academic advisors Daniel E. Koshland, Jr.

James E. Haber is an American molecular biologist known for discoveries in the field of DNA repair, in particular for his contributions to understanding the mechanisms of non-homologous end joining and microhomology-mediated end joining, as well as homologous recombination. [1]

Contents

Early life

Haber was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1943. [1]

Education

Haber obtained his AB at Harvard University, and his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, under the supervision of Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., working at that time on subunit interactions in proteins such as hemoglobin, [2] [3] as well as more general aspects of protein structure. [4] After obtaining his doctorate he moved to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin for post-doctoral work in the group of Harlyn Halvorson, when he studied the cell cycle dependence of sporulation in yeast. [5]

Career at Brandeis University

After his postdoctoral research Haber moved to Brandeis University, where he became the Abraham and Etta Goodman Professor of Biology, and Director of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, and where he has spent his career. There he studied various aspects of DNA repair, [6] [7] including mechanisms of non-homologous end-joining in yeast. [8] He has also worked on histone chaperones and the regulation of histone traffic. [9]

Distinctions

Haber was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010. [1] In 2011 he received the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal of the Genetics Society of America. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Related Research Articles

<i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> Species of yeast

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a species of yeast. The species has been instrumental in winemaking, baking, and brewing since ancient times. It is believed to have been originally isolated from the skin of grapes. It is one of the most intensively studied eukaryotic model organisms in molecular and cell biology, much like Escherichia coli as the model bacterium. It is the microorganism behind the most common type of fermentation. S. cerevisiae cells are round to ovoid, 5–10 μm in diameter. It reproduces by budding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Histone methyltransferase</span> Histone-modifying enzymes

Histone methyltransferases (HMT) are histone-modifying enzymes, that catalyze the transfer of one, two, or three methyl groups to lysine and arginine residues of histone proteins. The attachment of methyl groups occurs predominantly at specific lysine or arginine residues on histones H3 and H4. Two major types of histone methyltranferases exist, lysine-specific and arginine-specific. In both types of histone methyltransferases, S-Adenosyl methionine (SAM) serves as a cofactor and methyl donor group.
The genomic DNA of eukaryotes associates with histones to form chromatin. The level of chromatin compaction depends heavily on histone methylation and other post-translational modifications of histones. Histone methylation is a principal epigenetic modification of chromatin that determines gene expression, genomic stability, stem cell maturation, cell lineage development, genetic imprinting, DNA methylation, and cell mitosis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exonuclease</span> Class of enzymes; type of nuclease

Exonucleases are enzymes that work by cleaving nucleotides one at a time from the end (exo) of a polynucleotide chain. A hydrolyzing reaction that breaks phosphodiester bonds at either the 3′ or the 5′ end occurs. Its close relative is the endonuclease, which cleaves phosphodiester bonds in the middle (endo) of a polynucleotide chain. Eukaryotes and prokaryotes have three types of exonucleases involved in the normal turnover of mRNA: 5′ to 3′ exonuclease (Xrn1), which is a dependent decapping protein; 3′ to 5′ exonuclease, an independent protein; and poly(A)-specific 3′ to 5′ exonuclease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Non-homologous end joining</span> Pathway that repairs double-strand breaks in DNA

Non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) is a pathway that repairs double-strand breaks in DNA. It is called "non-homologous" because the break ends are directly ligated without the need for a homologous template, in contrast to homology directed repair (HDR), which requires a homologous sequence to guide repair. NHEJ is active in both non-dividing and proliferating cells, while HDR is not readily accessible in non-dividing cells. The term "non-homologous end joining" was coined in 1996 by Moore and Haber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MCM6</span>

DNA replication licensing factor MCM6 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MCM6 gene. MCM6 is one of the highly conserved mini-chromosome maintenance proteins (MCM) that are essential for the initiation of eukaryotic genome replication.

Mitotic recombination is a type of genetic recombination that may occur in somatic cells during their preparation for mitosis in both sexual and asexual organisms. In asexual organisms, the study of mitotic recombination is one way to understand genetic linkage because it is the only source of recombination within an individual. Additionally, mitotic recombination can result in the expression of recessive alleles in an otherwise heterozygous individual. This expression has important implications for the study of tumorigenesis and lethal recessive alleles. Mitotic homologous recombination occurs mainly between sister chromatids subsequent to replication. Inter-sister homologous recombination is ordinarily genetically silent. During mitosis the incidence of recombination between non-sister homologous chromatids is only about 1% of that between sister chromatids.

The mating-type locus is a specialized region in the genomes of some yeast and other fungi, usually organized into heterochromatin and possessing unique histone methylation patterns. The genes in this region regulate the mating type of the organism and therefore determine key events in its life cycle, such as whether it will reproduce sexually or asexually. In fission yeast such as S. pombe, the formation and maintenance of the heterochromatin organization is regulated by RNA-induced transcriptional silencing, a form of RNA interference responsible for genomic maintenance in many organisms. Mating type regions have also been well studied in budding yeast S. cerevisiae and in the fungus Neurospora crassa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MCM2</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

DNA replication licensing factor MCM2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MCM2 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MCM4</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

DNA replication licensing factor MCM4 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MCM4 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rad50</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

DNA repair protein RAD50, also known as RAD50, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the RAD50 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exonuclease 1</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

Exonuclease 1 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the EXO1 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RAD52</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

RAD52 homolog , also known as RAD52, is a protein which in humans is encoded by the RAD52 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EIF3A</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 3 subunit A (eIF3a) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the EIF3A gene. It is one of the subunits of Eukaryotic initiation factor 3 (eIF3) a multiprotein complex playing major roles in translation initiation in eukaryotes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RAD51L3</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

DNA repair protein RAD51 homolog 4 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the RAD51L3 gene.

SAE2 is a gene in budding yeast, coding for the protein Sae2, which is involved in DNA repair. Sae2 is a part of the homologous recombination process in response to double-strand breaks. It is best characterized in the yeast model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Homologous genes in other organisms include Ctp1 in fission yeast, Com1 in plants, and CtIP in higher eukaryotes including humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HIRA</span> Human gene and protein

Protein HIRA is a protein that in humans is encoded by the HIRA gene. This gene is mapped to 22q11.21, centromeric to COMT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DNAJA2</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

DnaJ homolog subfamily A member 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the DNAJA2 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SMC6</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

Structural maintenance of chromosomes protein 6 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SMC6 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homology directed repair</span>

Homology-directed repair (HDR) is a mechanism in cells to repair double-strand DNA lesions. The most common form of HDR is homologous recombination. The HDR mechanism can only be used by the cell when there is a homologous piece of DNA present in the nucleus, mostly in G2 and S phase of the cell cycle. Other examples of homology-directed repair include single-strand annealing and breakage-induced replication. When the homologous DNA is absent, another process called non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) takes place instead.

SilentInformationRegulator (SIR) proteins are involved in regulating gene expression. SIR proteins organize heterochromatin near telomeres, ribosomal DNA (rDNA), and at silent loci including hidden mating type loci in yeast. The SIR family of genes encodes catalytic and non-catalytic proteins that are involved in de-acetylation of histone tails and the subsequent condensation of chromatin around a SIR protein scaffold. Some SIR family members are conserved from yeast to humans.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "James Haber". www.nasonline.org.
  2. Haber, J. E.; Koshland, D. E. Jr. (1967). "Relation of protein subunit interactions to the molecular species observed during cooperative binding of ligands". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 58 (5): 2087–2093. Bibcode:1967PNAS...58.2087H. doi: 10.1073/pnas.58.5.2087 . PMC   223909 . PMID   5237502.
  3. Haber, J. E.; Koshland, D. E. Jr. (1969). "Evidence for β-β interactions during the binding of oxygen to hemoglobin". Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 194 (1): 339–341. doi:10.1016/0005-2795(69)90215-3. PMID   5353133.
  4. Haber, J. E.; Koshland, D. E. Jr. (1970). "An evaluation of the relatedness of proteins based on comparison of amino acid sequences". J. Mol. Biol. 50 (3): 617–639. doi:10.1016/0022-2836(70)90089-6. PMID   4097749.
  5. Haber, J. E.; Halvorson, H.O. (1972). "Cell cycle dependency of sporulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae'". J. Bacteriol. 109 (3): 1027–1033. doi:10.1128/JB.109.3.1027-1033.1972. PMC   247323 . PMID   4551739.
  6. Haber, J. E. (2000). "Partners and pathways: Repairing a double-strand break". Trends Genet. 16 (6): 259–264. doi:10.1016/S0168-9525(00)02022-9. PMID   10827453.
  7. Harrison, J. C.; Haber, J. E. (2006). "Surviving the breakup: The DNA damage checkpoint". Annu. Rev. Genet. 40: 209–235. doi:10.1146/annurev.genet.40.051206.105231. PMID   16805667.
  8. Moore, J. K.; Haber, J. E. (1996). "Cell cycle and genetic requirements of two pathways of nonhomologous end-joining repair of double-strand breaks in Saccharomyces cerevisiae". Mol. Cell. Biol. 16 (5): 2164–2173. doi:10.1128/mcb.16.5.2164. PMC   231204 . PMID   8628283.
  9. De Koning, L.; Corpet, A.; Haber, J. E.; Almouzni, G. (2007). "Histone chaperones: an escort network regulating histone traffic". Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 14 (11): 997–1007. doi:10.1038/nsmb1318. PMID   17984962. S2CID   38172713.