This interview is with Gene Regulation and Systems Biology editorial board member Dr Frederick Domann. Gene Regulation and Systems Biology is an open access journal published by Libertas Academica.

Editor in Chief Dr James Willey has recently issued a call for papers.

What is the primary focus of your work and main areas of expertise?

Our laboratory is primarily interested in the effects of redox metabolism on epigenetic control of chromatin structure and gene expression in cancer. Our main areas of expertise include free radical biology, mitochondrial metabolism, DNA methylation, and histone modifications.

What are the most exciting and cutting-edge developments in your area?

The recent discovery of the lysine demethylase (KDM) family of enzymes, and the realization that these are 2-oxoglutarate dependent dioxygenases, has provided a direct conceptual link between the redox biochemistry of central metabolism and establishment and maintenance of epigenomic landscapes. Equally or even more exciting is the very recent discovery of 5-hydroxy-methylcytosine as the "6th base" within DNA, and that the enzyme that catalyzes its formation, TET1, is apparently also a 2-oxoglutarate dependent dioxygenase! The significance of 5-OH-methylcytosine in genomic DNA is unknown, but we speculate that it may be an intermediate in an active process of oxidative cytosine demethylation. These findings will have enormous impacts in our long-term understanding of epigenetic mechanisms that govern development and cancer.

Who are your main formal and informal collaborators and/or networks? Please describe your work with them.

We have had a long standing collaboration with the Futscher lab at the University of Arizona to examine epigenetic control of gene expression in cancer and in normal human cells. Together, we were the first to demonstrate unequivocally a role for cytosine methylation in normal cell type specific expression of a gene known as SERPINB5 (Nature Genetics 31, 175-9, 2002). We have recently begun a collaboration with Jeannie Lee to examine the role of redox metabolism on epigenetic determinants of X-chromosome inactivation state during the establishment and maintenance of human induce pluripotential stem cells (hiPS).

How did you come to be working in your research area?

Through a long-standing interest in redox biochemistry associated with oxygen toxicity and radiation injury stemming from my graduate studies. Then a blossoming interest in epigenetic control mechanisms, beginning with DNA methylation, fueled a deeper interest in identifying conceptual and practical links between epigenetic control mechanisms and redox biology.

What do you think about the development of open access publishing? Have you published in an open access journal? What motivated you to do so?

I believe that open access publishing is likely to be the wave of the future. I have published in open access journals as they are freely available to individuals even without a subscription. The newest literature is much more broadly and instantly available. Open access has certainly provided an alternative avenue for publication for important findings that may not have had a chance at more traditional journals.

Further Information

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Research Interests