Wilusz Lab
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Carol Wilusz

Carol Wilusz

Assistant Professor

Phone: 970-491-4919
Fax: 970-491-4941
Email: carol.wilusz@colostate.edu

Degrees

  • BS Biochemistry (1991) Imperial College, London UK


  • PhD Drosophila Genetics (1995) Imperial College, London UK. Advisor: Dr Kevin O'Hare


  • 1996-1998 Post-Doc - University of Indiana, and University of Colorado Health Sciences Center Trans-splicing & 3'end formation in C.elegans. Mentor: Dr Tom Blumenthal

  • 1998-2000 Post-Doc - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School - UMDNJ Yeast mRNA decay. Mentor: Dr Stuart Peltz


  • 2000-2003 Adjunct Assistant Professor - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School - UMDNJ

  • 2003- Assistant Professor, Microbiology, Immunology & Pathology, Colorado State University

Research Interests

Our laboratory studies the regulation of mRNA metabolism in eukaryotic cells. Specifically, we are investigating the role of aspects of mRNA metabolism in pathogenesis of human disease. Our interests range from genetic diseases such as myotonic dystrophy, to cancer, to viral infections. Much of the work in the lab is done in collaboration with Dr Jeffrey Wilusz.

Recently, we have become interested in a potential contribution of aberrant mRNA decay to the pathogenesis of Myotonic Dystrophy. Myotonic Dystrophy, DM1, is caused by an expanded CTG repeat in the 3'UTR of the myotonic dystrophy protein kinase (DMPK; Brook et al., 1992). This repeat is transcribed into the mRNA where it causes retention of the transcript in nuclear foci (Taneja et al., 1995). One consequence of this is reduced expression of DMPK. However, this defect is not the major cause of disease. The RNA itself is toxic to the cell and induces several characterized alterations in muscle-specific gene expression (Ranum and Day, 2004).

One protein whose expression is dramatically affected in DM1 patients is CUG-BP (Roberts et al., 1997). CUG-BP is an RNA-binding protein implicated in several altered mRNA splicing events in DM1 cells(Philips et al., 1998). In addition, CUG-BP has been shown to modulate translation of clinically relevant mRNAs (Timchenko et al., 2004; Welm et al., 2000). Our laboratory has recently demonstrated that CUG-BP is able to enhance shortening of the poly(A) tail of certain mRNAs by the PARN deadenylase in vitro (Moraes et al., 2006). As the poly(A) tail normally acts to promote translation and prevent mRNA decay, this may indicate that mis-expression of CUG-BP plays an integral role in altering decay of certain mRNAs in DM1 patients. Our goal is to examine this regulation using a mouse myoblast cell line (C2C12) as a model.

Recent Publications

Bergman N, Moraes K.C., Anderson J.R., Zaric B, Kambach C, Schneider R.J., Wilusz C.J., Wilusz J. (2007). Lsm proteins bind and stabilize RNAs containing 5' poly(A) tracts. Nat Struct Mol Biol 9:824-831

Kurt T.D., Perrott M.R., Wilusz C.J., Wilusz J, Supattapone S, Telling G.C. Zabel M.D., Hoover E.A. (2007). Efficient in vitro amplicfication of chronic wasting disease PrPRES. J Virol 17:9605-8.

Saldi T, Wilusz C.J., MacMorris M, Blumenthal T. (2007). Functional redundancy of worm spliceosomal proteins U1A and U2B''. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 23:9753-7

Garneau N.L., Wilusz J, Wilusz C.J. (2007). The highways and byways of mRNA decay. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 2:113-26.

Wilusz C.J., Wilusz J. (2007). HuR-SIRT: the hairy world of posttranscriptional control. Molecular Cell 4:485-7.

Moraes K.C., Wilusz C.J., and Wilusz J. (2006). CUG-BP binds to RNA substrates and recruits PARN deadenylase. RNA 12:1084-1091.

Sokoloski K.J., Wilusz C.J., Wilusz J. (2006). Viruses: overturning RNA turnover. RNA Biol. 4:140-4.

Wilusz C.J., Wilusz J. (2005) Eukaryotic Lsm proteins: lessons from bacteria. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 12:1031-1036.

Opyrchal M., Anderson J.T., Sokoloski K.J., Wilusz C.J. and Wilusz J. (2005) A cell-free mRNA stability assay reveals conservation of the enzymes and mechanisms of mRNA decay between mosquito and mammalian cell lines. Insect Biochemistry & Molecular Biology 35(12):1321-34

Duttagupta R, Tian B, Wilusz C.J., Khounh D.T., Soteropoulos P, Ouyang M, Dougherty J.P., Peltz S.W. (2005) Global Analysis of Pub1p Targets Reveals a Coordinate Control of Gene
Expression through Modulation of Binding and Stability.
Mol Cell Biol. 25(13):5499-513.

Fritz D.T., Bergman N, Kilpatrick W.J., Wilusz C.J., Wilusz J. (2004) Messenger RNA decay in Mammalian cells: the exonuclease perspective. Cell Biochem Biophys 41(2):265-78.

Wilusz C.J., Wilusz J. (2004) Bringing the role of mRNA decay in the control of gene expression into focus. Trends Genet 20(10):491-7.


Vasudevan S, Peltz S.W., Wilusz C.J. (2002) Non-stop decay--a new mRNA surveillance pathway. Bioessays. 24(9):785-8

Wilusz C.J., Gao M, Jones C.L, Wilusz J, Peltz S.W. (2001) Poly(A)-binding proteins regulate both mRNA deadenylation and decapping in yeast cytoplasmic extracts. RNA.7(10):1416-24.

Gao M, Wilusz C.J., Peltz S.W., Wilusz J. (2001) A novel mRNA-decapping activity in HeLa cytoplasmic extracts is regulated by AU-rich elements.
EMBO J. 20(5):1134-43.

Wilusz C.J., Wang W, Peltz S.W. (2001) Curbing the nonsense: the activation and regulation of mRNA surveillance. Genes Dev. 15(21):2781-5.

Wilusz C.J., Wormington M, Peltz S.W. (2001) The cap-to-tail guide to mRNA turnover. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2(4):237-46.

Evans D, Perez I, MacMorris M, Leake D, Wilusz C.J., Blumenthal T. (2001) A complex containing CstF-64 and the SL2 snRNP connects mRNA 3' end formation and trans-splicing in C. elegans operons. Genes Dev. 15(19):2562-71.