The Department of Chemical and Systems Biology Presents

Christian Zierhut, Ph.D.
Team Leader, Institute of Cancer Research

Talk Title: “Chromatin regulation of innate immune self-DNA sensing and cell death”

 Abstract: Pattern recognition receptors are an important component of the innate immune system, and allow host cells to respond to general pathogen components that are restrained by evolution, and cannot easily be changed to outwit their receptors. One such general pathogen component is the genetic material of bacteria and many viruses, DNA, which triggers innate immune signalling following recognition by cGAS. This system requires cGAS to be unresponsive to self-DNA, and in this lecture, I will describe the mechanism underlying self-discrimination, as well as some of the consequences of its breakdown during genotoxic stress, when cGAS can promote cell death.   

Reading Material:

1.       Kujirai et al. Structural basis for the inhibition of cGAS by nucleosomes.
Science. 2020 Oct 23;370(6515):455-458. doi: 10.1126/science.abd0237.
Epub 2020 Sep 10. PMID: 32912999; PMCID: PMC7584773.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32912999/

2.      Zierhut C, Funabiki H. Regulation and Consequences of cGAS Activation by Self-DNA.
Trends Cell Biol. 2020 Aug;30(8):594-605. doi: 10.1016/j.tcb.2020.05.006.
Epub 2020 Jun 13. PMID: 32546434; PMCID: PMC7368801.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32546434/

Please contact Yolanda Cervantes @ ycervant@stanford.edu for zoom details.