Mechanism and Structure of the 4 Eukaryotic Clamp Loaders

Event Details

Type

Monday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Michael O'Donnell, Ph.D., Anthony and Judith Evnin Professor and head, Laboratory of DNA Replication, The Rockefeller University; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Speaker bio(s)

Circular sliding clamps were initially discovered in the E. coli system. The clamp encircles duplex DNA and holds the replicase to DNA for exceedingly high processivity during chromosome replication. The clamp requires an ATP driven pentamer to open and close the clamp around DNA. Since that time, eukaryotic systems have been shown to have four different clamp loaders that load two different clamps, PCNA and the 9-1-1 clamp. Dr. O'Donnell's talk will focus on the structure and function of these four clamp loaders. They provide an amazing story of how evolution can fashion different activities simply by exchanging one subunit within a pentameric complex.

Michael O’Donnell earned his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, where he was a member of Charles William’s lab and did postdoctoral work at Stanford with Arthur Kornberg. Before joining Rockefeller as a professor in 1996, he was a member of the faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College. O’Donnell has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1993 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

MLS lectures are only open to the RU community and will be taking place in Carson Family Auditorium and virtually via Zoom. Virtual participants are required to log in with their RU Zoom account and use their RU email address and password for authentication. We recommend signing out of VPN prior to logging in to the lecture. Please do not share the link or post on social media.

Open to

Campus Only