Professor

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, School of Public Health
Director, BMB PhD Training Program

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Research in the Matunis laboratory is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating the modification of proteins by the small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) and the consequences of SUMOylation in relation to protein function, cell behavior and ultimately, human disease. Particular interests include understanding how SUMOylation regulates cell cycle progression, DNA damage repair, nuclear import and export, and cell stress response pathways. We have studied SUMOylation in mammalian cells, yeast and the malaria parasite, P. facliparum, using a variety of in vitro biochemical approaches, in vivo cellular approaches and genetics.

Cancer Biology | Cell Biology | Cellular Stress and Cell Signaling | Chemical Biology and Proteomics | Genetics, Genomics and Gene Regulation

Selected Publications

Wang W, Lu J, Yang WC, Spear ED, Michaelis S, Matunis MJ. Analysis of a degron-containing reporter protein GFP-CL1 reveals a role for SUMO1 in cytosolic protein quality control. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2023.

Ellis N, Zhu J, Yagle MK, Yang WC, Huang J, Kwako A, Seidman MM, Matunis MJ. RNF4 Regulates the BLM Helicase in Recovery From Replication Fork Collapse. Frontiers in Genetics, 2021.

Bouchard D, Wang W, Yang WC, He S, Garcia A, Matunis MJ. SUMO paralogue-specific functions revealed through systematic analysis of human knockout cell lines and gene expression data. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 2021.

Bouchard DM, Matunis MJ. A cellular and bioinformatics analysis of the SENP1 SUMO isopeptidase in pancreatic cancer. Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology, 2019.

Lee CC, Li B, Yu H, Matunis MJ. Sumoylation promotes optimal APC/C Activation and Timely Anaphase. eLife, 2018.

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