Elliot Drobetsky

TITLE

• Associate Professor

EDUCATION

• B.Sc., Human Genetics, McGill University.
• Ph.D., Molecular Genetics, York University.

DISTINCTIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

• CIHR Junior Investigator Grant, 1995.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

For many years my laboratory has focused on elucidating the molecular mechanism of nucleotide excision repair (NER), with particular emphasis on the role of cellular signal transduction pathways.

Recently we developed a powerful flow cytometry-based DNA repair assay to quantify the efficiency of NER in UV-irradiated human cells (see Rouget et al., 2008, J. Biol. Chem., 281:5533-5541).

This powerful method has been further optimized to evaluate cell cycle specificity for NER, which allowed us to reveal a highly-novel regulatory function for ATR kinase in the removal of UV-induced DNA damage uniquely during S phase (see Auclair et al., 2008, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., in press). 

selected papers

Drobetsky E.A., Grosovsky, A.J. and Glickman B.W. (1987) The specificity of UV-induced mutations at an endogenous locus in mammalian cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.,  84: 9103-9107.

Sage, E., Drobetsky, E.A., and Moustacchi E. (1993) 8-Methoxypsoralen induced mutations are highly targeted at crosslinkable sites of photoaddition on the nontranscribed strand of a mammalian gene. EMBO J. 12: 397-402.

Drobetsky, E.A.,Turcotte, J., and Chateauneuf, A. (1995). A role for ultraviolet-A in solar mutagenesis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 92:2350-2354.

Sage, E.,  Lamolet, B., Brulay, E., Moustacchi, E., Chateauneuf, A. and Drobetsky, E.A. (1996). The mutagenic specificity of solar ultraviolet light in nucleotide excision repair-deficient rodent cells.  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 93:176-180.

Loignon M., Fetni, R., Gordon, A.J.E., and Drobetsky, E.A (1997). A p53-independent pathway for induction of p21waf1cip1 and concomitant G1 arrest in UV-irradiated human skin fibroblasts. Cancer Res. 15: 3390-94.

Therrien, J-P., Drouin, R., Baril, C., and Drobetsky, E.A. (1999). Human cells compromised for p53 function exhibit defective global- and transcription-coupled–nucleotide excision repair whereas cells compromised for pRb function are defective only in global repair. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 96:15038-043.

Therrien, J.P., Loignon, M., Drouin, R., and Drobetsky, E.A. (2001). Ablation of p21waf1 expression enhances the capacity of p53-deficient human cells to repair UVB-induced DNA damage. Cancer Res. 61:3781-3786

Rochette, P.J., Bastien, N., McKay, B.C., Therrien, J.P., Drobetsky, E.A., and Drouin, R. (2002). Human cells bearing homozygous mutations in the DNA mismatch repair genes hMLH1 or hMSH2 are fully proficient in transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair. Oncogene 21:5743-5752.

Mathonnet, G., Léger, C., Desnoyers, J., Drouin, R., Therrien, J.P., and Drobetsky, E.A. (2003). UV Wavelength-dependent regulation of transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair in p53-deficient human cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 100:7219-7224.

Rouget, R., Auclair, Y., and Drobetsky, E.A. (2008) A sensitive flow cytometry-based nucleotide excision repair assay unexpectedly reveals that MAPK signaling does not regulate the removal of UV-induced DNA damage in human cells. J. Biol. Chem., 283:5533-5541.

Complete list of Dr Drobetsky's publications (PubMed)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Grants

• CIHR

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