Hingorani, Lui, Zhou PhD ’13 Published in Biological Chemistry Journal

Three scholars from the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department are co-authors of a study published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry in August 2017. The paper is titled “Linchpin DNA-binding residues serve as go/no-go controls in the replication factor C-catalyzed clamp loading mechanism.”

The co-authors, Manju Hingorani, chair and professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, professor of integrative sciences; Juan Liu, research associate; and Zayan Zhou, PhD ’13, performed the study on Replication Factor C (RFC) and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), which are two essential proteins required for DNA replication and repair in all living organisms.

The researchers found new mechanistic information about how different parts of the RFC protein work together to load PCNA onto DNA (by “clamp loading”), which allows PCNA to help dozens of other proteins to replicate and repair DNA.

The Hingorani group investigates proteins responsible for DNA replication and repair. These proteins maintain genome and cell integrity, and their malfunction leads to cancer and other diseases.