Lee Lab
Principal Investigator: Seongmin Lee
Institution: The University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
ABSTRACT Alkylation DNA damage caused by alkylating agents promotes mutations and cancer development. Guanine N7 is targeted by a wide range of alkylating mutagens, carcinogens, and anticancer agents, producing the cationic N7-alkylguanine (N7-alkylG) adducts as major lesions. These lesions have half-lives of several hours to days in DNA and thus can affect DNA replication and transcription. The positively charged N7-alkylG lesions can also undergo further modification to generate secondary lesions such as alkyl-formamidopyrimidine (alkyl-FapyG) adducts. The recognition, repair, and mutagenesis mechanisms of many mutagen/carcinogen-induced N7- alkylG and alkyl-FapyG lesions, except for a few lesions such as N7-aflatoxin B1-G and aflatoxin B1-FapyG adducts, remain poorly characterized, thereby precluding a complete understanding of the contribution of these major lesions to mutations and cancer development. For example, the mutagenic properties of the predominant N7-alkylG adducts produced by the cancer-promoting styrene oxide are unknown. This knowledge gap has been due in part to the technical difficulty in preparing a site-specific N7-alkylG- and alkyl-FapyG-containing DNA, which…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01ES034781-04: Studies of Chemically Labile Alkylation Damage in DNA (2026)
- 5R01ES034781-03: Studies of Chemically Labile Alkylation Damage in DNA (2025)
- 5R01ES034781-02: Studies of Chemically Labile Alkylation Damage in DNA (2024)
Explore 700+ US Biology Labs on FindBioLabs.com