Fred Bunz Lab Research

The Bunz laboratory is dedicated to studying the effects of radiation and therapeutic drugs on cancer cells and normal tissues.  The molecular focus of these studies is the DNA damage signaling network.  The complex and interconnected pathways that compose this network modulate the responses of normal proliferating cells and cancer cells to the affects of DNA damage.  A growing body of evidence suggests that the genes involved in the DNA damage responses also play an important role in sensing the early oncogenic changes that occur as cancers develop from normal precursor cells.  DNA damage responses are thus thought to be critical in suppressing tumorigenesis, and in eliminating nascent cancer cells by triggering apoptosis, cell cycle arrest and senescence.  The studies in the Bunz laboratory are focused on how DNA damage signaling affects the regulation of the cell cycle and cell survival, both in cancer cells and in the stem cell populations from which cancers arise.

Recent Publications

● Bunz F, Fauth C, Speicher MR, Dutriaux A, Sedivy JM, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, and Lengauer C. (2002) Targeted Inactivation of p53 in Human Cells Does Not Result in Aneuploidy.Cancer Res 62:1129-1133.

● Jallepalli PV, Lengauer C, Vogelstein B, Bunz F.(2003) The Chk2 tumor suppressor is not required for p53 responses in human cancer cells. J Biol Chem278:20475-9.

● Cummins JC, Kohli M, Rago C, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Bunz F.(2004) XIAP is a nonredundant modulator of TRAIL-mediated apoptosis in human cancer cells.Cancer Res 64:3006-3008.

● Topaloglu O, Hurley PJ, Yildirim O, Civin CI, Bunz F.(2005) Improved methods for the generation of human gene knockout and knockin cell lines.Nucleic Acids Res 7;33:e158.

● Matoba S, Kang JG, Patino WD, Wragg A, Boehm M, Gavrilova O, Hurley PJ, Bunz F, Hwang PM.(2006) p53 regulates mitochondrial respiration.Science 312:1650-3.

● Hurley PJ, Wilsker D, Bunz F. (2007) Human cancer cells require ATR for cell cycle progression following exposure to ionizing radiation.Oncogene 26:2535-42.

● Hurley PJ, Bunz F. (2007) ATM and ATR: components of an integrated circuit.Cell Cycle 6: 414-7.

● Wilsker D, Bunz F.(2007) Loss of Ataxia telangiectasia mutate- and Rad3-related function potentiates the effects of chemotherapeutic drugs on cancer cell survival.Mol Cancer Ther 6: 1406-13.

● Rago C, Vogelstein B, Bunz F. (2007) Genetic knockouts and knockins in human somatic cells.  Nat Protoc 2:2734-46.