Rémi Buisson

Rémi Buisson

@buissonlab.bsky.social

Associate Professor at University of California Irvine. APOBEC, innate immunity, DNA damage, RNA viruses, and scuba diving fanatic.

553 followers315 following35 posts

We are seeking a motivated postdoctoral fellow to investigate mechanisms of DNA damage response, APOBEC-mediated mutagenesis, innate immunity, and double-stranded RNA sensing. Located in Southern California, UCI offers an outstanding scientific environment and exceptional quality of life.

Today, we report that APOBEC3B targets unprotected single-stranded DNA at replication forks upon ATR inhibition, triggering a reaction cascade involving UNG2 and APE1 that leads to fork collapse and hyperactivation of PARP1, causing replication catastrophe. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.orgMechanism of DNA replication fork breakage and PARP1 hyperactivation during replication catastropheUpon ATR inhibition, APOBEC3B targets unprotected single-stranded DNA at replication forks, leading to fork breakage.

Rémi Buisson reposted

Very sad to read about the science funding situation in the US at the moment. I am waiting for some funding decisions in the coming weeks, but I will likely have opening(s) in my lab in Switzerland in the coming weeks (PhD student/postdoc). As a PhD candidate, you need to have a Master's degree.

Rémi Buisson reposted

Happy to report the 2025/05 NIH Biochemical and Cellular Oncogenesis (BCO) study section meeting has been rescheduled for late April. Just FYI.

Bret Freudenthal@freudlab.bsky.social

The 2025/05 NIH Biochemical and Cellular Oncogenesis (BCO) study section meeting that was supposed to happen tomorrow has been rescheduled to a later date, to be determined. Just FYI for folks wondering. This is so disheartening.

Rémi Buisson reposted

The 2025/05 NIH Biochemical and Cellular Oncogenesis (BCO) study section meeting that was supposed to happen tomorrow has been rescheduled to a later date, to be determined. Just FYI for folks wondering. This is so disheartening.

Our findings provide an alternative mechanism for damaged cells with impaired transcription to initiate an inflammatory response without relying on their own gene expression, a necessary step that injured cells depend on during canonical innate immune responses.

Simultaneous deletion of PACT and ADAR1 results in synthetic lethality, which can be fully rescued in PKR-deficient cells. This suggests PACT cooperates with ADAR1 to suppress PKR activation from self-dsRNAs in uninfected cells.

We propose that both PACT and ADAR1 act as essential barriers against PKR, creating a threshold of tolerable levels to endogenous dsRNA in cells without activating PKR-mediated translation shutdown and cell death.

We find that cells deficient for PACT hyperactivate PKR in response to several different RNA viruses, raising the question of why cells need to limit PKR activity? We show that it is critical to prevent PKR activation from self-dsRNA.

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Additionally, we show that APE1-mediated DNA cleavage is the critical step for PARP1 trapping and hyperactivation in cells, regardless of how abasic sites are formed, likely through the generation of 5'-dRP on DNA.

We find that ATR inhibition depletes RPA, exposing single-stranded DNA at replication forks to APOBEC3B. This triggers a cascade involving UNG2 creating abasic sites and APE1, which subsequently cleaves abasic sites, causing fork collapse and PARP1 activation.

In our latest paper @pnas, we reported CRISPR-Translate, a genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screen-based method designed to identify factors regulating translation. We discovered IRF2 as a novel regulator of OAS3/RNase L-mediated RNA decay during viral infections. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

pnas.orgA CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screening identifies IRF2 as a key driver of OAS3/RNase L-mediated RNA decay during viral infection | PNASOAS-RNase L is a double-stranded RNA-induced antiviral pathway triggered in response to diverse viral infections. Upon activation, OAS-RNase L supp...

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