The Basic Biology of Aging at the University of Washington
Nancy Maizels, Ph.D.

Biosketch Information
Email: maizels@u.washington.edu

Our laboratory studies DNA recombination and repair in mammalian cells. We are interested in how repair and recombination enzymes function in general to maintain genomic stability and in the mechanisms of changes in genomic structure that occur in activated B lymphocytes. One focus of our research is to learn how helicases of the RecQ family (WRN, BLM, Sgs1p) function to prevent accumulation of DNA damage, and to understand why mutations in different members of this helicase family have profoundly different effects on human biology.

We are working to define the enzymes that introduce and repair DNA breaks during immunoglobulin class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation in activated B cells. These processes depend largely on factors involved in maintenance of genomic stability. Diminished function of these factors over an individual's lifetime almost certainly contributes to reduction in the efficiency of switch recombination and somatic hypermutation with age.

Dr. Maizels came from Yale University School of Medicine in 2000 and is Professor, Departments of Immunology and Biochemistry. At Yale she was Director, Cellular and Molecular Biology Training Program, 1995-2000. She served as a member on the NIH Mammalian Genetics Study Section, 1996-2000 and on the NCI Special Review Committee, 2001, and as a reviewer for the NSF Biochemistry of Gene Expression Panel, 2001. She also participates on the NIH Biomedical Research and Research Training Review Committee, 2000-2004.

Selected Relevant Publications
Sun H, Karow JK, Hickson ID, Maizels N. The Bloom’s syndrome helicase unwinds G4 DNA. J Biol Chem 273:27587-27592, 1998.

Dempsey LA, Sun H, Hanakahi LA, Maizels N. G4 DNA binding by LR1 and its subunits, nucleolin and hnRNP D: a role for G-G pairing in immunoglobulin switch recombination. J Biol Chem 274:1066-1071, 1999.

Sun H, Bennett R J, Maizels N. The S. cerevisiae Sgs1 helicase efficiently unwinds G-G paired DNAs. Nucleic Acids Res 27:19078-19084, 1999.

Liu Y, Li M-J, Lee EY-HP, Maizels N. Localization and dynamic relocalization of mammalian Rad52 during the cell cycle and in response to DNA damage. Curr Biol 9:975-978, 1999.

Eversole A, Maizels N. hnRNP D: a mammalian protein that binds telomeric tails. Mol Cell Biol 20:5425-5432, 2000.

Wu X, Maizels N. Substrate-specific inhibition of RecQ helicase. Nucleic Acids Res 29:1765-1771, 2001.

Kong Q, Maizels N. DNA breaks in hypermutating immunoglobulin genes: evidence for a break and repair pathway of somatic hypermutation. Genetics 158, 369-378, 2001.

Sun H, Yabuki A, Maizels N. A mammalian nuclease specific for G4 DNA. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:12444-12449, 2001.