• Publications
• Experience
• About

Professional Focus

Dr. Murnane is a molecular biologist with over 25 years in the field of radiation biology. Dr. Murnane is responsible for teaching radiobiology to medical and physics residents in the Department of Radiation Oncology, as well as supervising a medical research laboratory. His research interests focus on the mechanisms of genomic instability in mammalian cells and their role in cancer. Genomic instability is considered an important step in cancer because it can greatly accelerate the genetic changes leading to tumor cell progression. Dr. Murnane pioneered studies on the importance of cell cycle regulation in the cellular response to DNA damage and was the first to describe the alternative mechanism for telomere maintenance in human cells. His current interests lie in understanding the role of spontaneous and radiation-induced telomere loss in genomic instability and cancer. Telomeres are the caps that protect the ends of chromosomes and prevent chromosomes from fusing together. Dr. Murnane's research has demonstrated that cancer cells have a high rate of telomere loss due to problems in telomere maintenance. His work also shows that both spontaneous telomere loss, or telomere loss caused by double-strand breaks similar to those caused by ionizing radiation, can both initiate genomic instability and generate many of the types of chromosome alterations commonly associated with cancer. Understanding these processes may lead to new approaches to limiting or preventing genomic instability and thereby reduce its role in promoting cancer.

Education

1971	California State University, Northridge	BS	Chemistry
1977	UCLA
1980	UCLA	PhD	Microbiology

Professional Experience

2007-present	UCSF	Professor in Residence, Vice Chair	Department of Radiation Oncology
1998-2007	UCSF	Adjunct Professor
1996-1998	UCSF	Associate Adjunct Professor	Department of Radiation Oncology
1991-1996	UCSF	Associate Adjunct Professor
1984-1991	UCSF	Assistant Adjunct Professor	Laboratory of Radiobiology & Environmental Health
1983-1984	UCSF	Asst. Research Biochemist with Dr. Robert Painter	Laboratory of Radiobiology & Environmental Health
1980-1983	UCSF	Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Robert B. Painter	Laboratory of Radiobiology & Environmental Health

Publications

Sprung, C.N., Sabatier, L. and Murnane, J.P. Telomere dynamics in a human cancer cell line. Exp. Cell Res., 247:29-37 (1999).

Sprung, C.N., Reynolds, G. and Murnane, J.P. Chromosome healing in mouse embronic stem cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 96:6781-6786 (1999).

Schwartz, J. L., Murnane, J. and Weichselbaum, R. R. The contribution of DNA ploidy to radiation sensitivity in human tumour cell lines. British J. Cancer, 79:744-747 (1999).

Afshar, G. and Murnane, J.P. Characterization of a human gene with homology to Saccharomyces cerevisiae SIR2. Gene, 234:161-168 (1999).

Sprung, C.N., Sabatier, L. and Murnane, J.P. Telomere instability in a human cancer cell line. Mutat. Res., 429:209-223 (1999).

Desmaze, C., Albert, C., Martins, L., Pottier, G., Sprung, C. N., Murnane, J.P. and Sabatier, L. The influence of interstitial telomeric repeat sequences on chromosomal instability in human cells. Cytogenet. Cell Genet., 86:288-295 (1999).

Fouladi, B, Miller, D., Sabatier, L. and Murnane, J.P. The role of spontaneous telomere loss in chromosome instability in a human tumor cell line. Neoplasia 2:540-554 (2000).

Schwartz, J.L., Jordan, R., Liber, H., Murnane, J.P. and Evans, H.H. TP53-dependent chromosome instability is associated with transient reductions in telomere length in immortal telomerase-positive cell lines. Genes Chrom. Cancer 30:236-244 (2001).

Morales, J. F., Snow, E. T. and Murnane, J. P. Environmental factors affecting transcription of the human L1 retrotransposon: I. Steroid hormone-like agents. Mutagenesis 17:193-200 (2002).

Lo, A. W. I., Sprung, C., Fouladi, B., Pedram, M., Sabatier, L., Ricoul, M., Reynolds, G. E. and Murnane, J. P. Chromosome instability as a result of double-strand breaks near telomeres in mouse embryonic stem cells. Mol. Cell. Biol. 22:4836-4850 (2002).

Lo, A. W. I., Sabatier, L., Fouladi, B., Pottier, G, Ricoul, M., and Murnane, J. P. DNA amplification by breakage/fusion/bridge cycles initiated by spontaneous telomere loss in a human cancer cell line. Neoplasia 4:531-538 (2002).

Morales, J. F., Snow, E. T. and Murnane, J. P. Environmental factors affecting transcription of the human L1 retrotransposon: II. Stressors. Mutagenesis, 18:151-158 (2003).

Bai, Y. and Murnane, J. P. Telomere instability in a human tumor cell line expressing a dominant-negative WRN protein. Human Genetics, 113:337-347 (2003).

Bai, Y. and Murnane, J. P. Telomere instability in a human tumor cell line expressing a NBS1 with mutations at sites of phosphorylation by ATM. Mol. Can. Res. 1:1058-1069 (2003).

Desmaze, C., Pirzio, L. M., Blaise, R., Mondello, C., Giulotto, E., Murnane, J. P. and Sabatier, L. Interstitial telomeric repeats are not preferentially involved in radiation-induced chromosome aberrations. Cytogenet. Genome Res. 104:123-130 (2004).

Pirzio, L. M., Freulet-Marriere, M.-A., Bai, Y., Fouladi, B. Murnane, J. P., Sabatier, L. and Desmaze, C. Human fibroblasts expressing hTERT show remarkable karyotype stability even after exposure to ionizing radiation. Cytogenet. Genome Res. 104:87-94 (2004).

Murnane, J. P. and Sabatier, L. The role of telomeres in chromosome instability and cancer. BioEssays, 26:1164-1174 (2004).

Murnane, J. P. The role of telomeres in genomic instability. In: Apoptosis and Senescence in Cancer Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy. Beverly Teicher, ed., Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey (2005).

Sabatier, L., Ricoul, M., Pottier, G., Mathieu, N. and Murnane, J. P. The loss of a single telomere can result in instability of multiple chromosomes in a human tumor cell line. Mol. Can. Res., 3:139-150 (2005).

Pedram, M., Sprung, C. N., Gao, Q., Lo, A. W. I., Reynolds, G. E., and Murnane, J. P. Telomere position effect and silencing of transgenes near telomeres in mouse. Mol. Cell. Biol., 26:1865-1878 (2006).

Bailey, S. M. and Murnane, J. P. Telomeres, Chromosome instability and Cancer. Nucleic Acids Res., Nucleic Acids Res., 34: 2408-2417 (2006).

Murnane, J. P. Telomeres and chromosome instability. Special issue on mechanisms of chromosome rearrangements. DNA repair, 5:1083-1092 (2006).

Gao, Q, Reynolds, G. E., Innes, L., Pedram, M., Jones, E., Junabi, M., Gao, D.-W., Ricoul, M., Sabatier, L., Van Brocklin, H., Franc, B. L., and Murnane, J. P. Telomeric transgenes are silenced in adult mouse tissues and embryo fibroblasts, but are expressed in embryonic stem cells. Stem Cells, 25:3085-3092 (2007).

Ho, C. Y. S., Murnane, J. P., Yeung, A. K. Y., Ng, H. K., and Lo, A. W. I. Telomeres acquire distinct heterochromatin characteristics during siRNA-induced RNA interference in mouse cells. Current Biol., 18:183-187 (2008).

Gao, Q, Reynolds, G. E., Wilcox, A., Miller, D., Cheung, P., Artandi, S., and Murnane, J. P. Telomerase-dependent and independent mechanisms of chromosome healing in mouse embryonic stem cells. DNA Repair, 7:1233-1249
(2008).