Senior Scientist, Cancer Therapeutics, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Program Director, Cancer Therapeutics, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Professor Departments of Medicine and Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, University of Ottawa
Keywords: sirt1, knockout mice, aging, stem cells, gene expression
Current Research Projects:
The rate of aging in simple eukaryotes is controlled by the insulin-like growth factor pathway and by the sir2 protein. The incidence of cancer in mammals increases markedly with age suggesting that age-related changes might predispose tissues to oncogenic transformation. We are investigating the possibility that the mammalian sirt1 gene, the sir2 homologue, regulates aging and cancer susceptibility by creating mice and cell cultures that are null for the sirt1 gene and others that conditionally over-express the sirt1 protein.
Publications:
Pagans S, Pedal A, North BJ, Kaehlcke K, Marshall BL, Dorr A, Hetzer-Egger C, Henklein P, Frye R, McBurney MW , Hruby H, Jung M, Verdin E, Ott M. SIRT1 regulates HIV transcription via Tat deacetylation. PLoS Biol. 2005 Feb;3(2):e41.
Picard F, Kurtev M, Chung N, Topark-Ngarm A, Senawong T, Machado De Oliveira R, Leid M, McBurney MW , Guarente L. Sirt1 promotes fat mobilization in white adipocytes by repressing PPAR-gamma. Nature. 2004 Jun 17;429(6993):771-6.
Motta MC, Divecha N, Lemieux M, Kamel C, Chen D, Gu W, Bultsma Y, McBurney M , Guarente L. Mammalian SIRT1 represses forkhead transcription factors. Cell. 2004 Feb 20;116(4):551-63.
McBurney MW , Yang X, Jardine K, Bieman M, Th'ng J, Lemieux M. The absence of SIR2alpha protein has no effect on global gene silencing in mouse embryonic stem cells. Mol Cancer Res. 2003 Mar;1(5):402-9.
McBurney MW , Yang X, Jardine K, Hixon M, Boekelheide K, Webb JR, Lansdorp PM, Lemieux M. The mammalian SIR2alpha protein has a role in embryogenesis and gametogenesis. Mol Cell Biol. 2003 Jan;23(1):38-54.
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