Who was here, what they did and where are they now

Students

Poorani Ganesh Subramani

Ph.D. @ Department of medicine, division of Experimental Medicine, McGill University, 2024.

Ganesh did his undergraduate studies at McGill, where he obtained his B.Sc. following an interdepartmental honors in immunology project he did in 2014 in our lab. He immediately joined the lab as an M.Sc. student and then transitioned to Ph.D. He identified factors that regulate B cell activation and AID activity, thus contributing to efficient antibody responses.

He is now doing postdoctoral training at the Neurological institute of McGill University.

Publications

Subramani PG, Fraszczak J, Hellnes A, Estall J, Möröy T, Di Noia JM#. A conserved role of hnRNPL in regulating alternative splicing of transcriptional regulators necessary for B cell activation. EMBO Rep. 2024 May 14. doi: 10.1038/s44319-024-00152-3.
Lorenzo JP, Molla L, Amro EM, Ibarra IL, Ruf S, Neber C, Gkougkousis C, Ridani J, Subramani PG, Boulais J, Harjanto D, Vonica A, Di Noia JM, Dieterich C, Zaugg JB, Papavasiliou FN. APOBEC2 safeguards skeletal muscle cell fate through binding chromatin and regulating transcription of non-muscle genes during myoblast differentiation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 121(17):e2312330121.
Litzler LC*, Zahn A*, Dionne KL, Sprumont A, Ferreira SR, Slattery MFR, Methot SP, Patenaude AM,Hebert S, Kabir N, Subramani PG, Jung S, Richard S, Kleinman C, Di Noia JM#. Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 1 regulates B cell fate after positive selection in the germinal center in mice. J Exp. Med. 2023 Sep 4;220(9):e20220381. doi: 10.1084/jem.20220381.
Lin YH, Liang Y, Wang HC, Tung J, Forster M, Subramani PG, Di Noia JM, Clare S, Langlais D, Nijnik A. Regulation of B lymphocyte development by histone H2A deubiquitinase BAP. Frontiers in Immunology 2021 doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.626418.
Methot SP, Litzler LC, Subramani GP, Eranki A, Fifield H, Patenaude A-M, Gilmore JC, Santiago GE, Bagci H, Côté J-F, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM. A licensing step links AID to transcription elongation for B cell mutagenesis. Nature Communications, 2018, 9(1):1248. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03387-6.
Rodríguez-Cortez, VC, Martínez-Redondo P, Català-Moll F, Rodríguez-Ubreva J, Garcia-Gomez A, Subramani GP, Ciudad L, Hernando H, Pérez-García A, Company C, Urquiza JM, Ramiro AR, Di Noia JM, Vaquero A, Ballestar E. Activation-induced cytidine deaminase targets SUV4-20-mediated histone H4K20 trimethylation to class-switch recombination sites. Scientific Reports. 2017, 7, 553.

Paul Donnelly

M.Sc. Department of microbiology and immunology, McGill University, 2022

After a short internship in the summer of 2019, Paul came back in September 2019 to do a research project for the interdepartmental immunology honours program at McGill, investigating molecular mechanisms that regulate the germinal center reaction. He then stayed for his M.Sc. doing great work on signaling in B cells. He is now an intern at AbbVie.

Publications

Coming soon

Therence Bois

M.Sc. Molecular and Cellular Medicine option, Molecular Biology program, Université de Montréal, 2019

Hailing from Laval, Therence worked in the lab for an undergrad project and a summer internship during his Bac in biological sciences from UQAM. He then came back for his M.Sc. with us.

Therence started a Ph.D. but he was in parallel developing In vivo AI, a start-up he co-founded that uses artificial intelligence to optimize screening for drugs. When that project proved successful he took a one-year leave of absence and then decided to fully concentrate on his company, with great success!

Publications

Morande PE, Yan XJ, Sepulveda-Yanez JH, Seija N, Marquez ME, Sotelo NS, Abreu C, Crispo M, Fernández-Graña G, Rego N, Bois T, Methot SP, Palacios F, Remedi V, Rai KR, Buschiazzo A, Di Noia JM, Navarrete MA, Chiorazzi N, Oppezzo P. AID overexpression leads to aggressive murine CLL and non-Ig mutations that mirror human neoplasms. Blood. 2021 doi: 10.1182/blood.2020008654.
Litzler LC, Zahn A, Meli AP, Hébert S, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Sprumont A, Bois T, Kitamura D, Costantino S, King IL, Kleinman CL, Richard S, Di Noia JM#. PRMT5 is essential for B cell development and germinal center dynamics. Nature Communications, 2019 Jan 3;10(1):22. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07884-6.

Adrien Sprumont

M.Sc., Molecular and Cellular Medicine option, Molecular Biology program, Université de Montréal, 2019

Adrien graduated from McGill University. He first joined the lab in May 2017 for his research project for the Honors program of the Department of microbiology and Immunology at McGill. He stayed with us and was accepted for the IRCM's MCM program. He studied the role of PRMTs in germinal center B cells. ]

He is then didhis Ph.D. in immunology at the University of Oxford, UK.

Publications

Litzler LC*, Zahn A*, Dionne KL, Sprumont A, Ferreira SR, Slattery MFR, Methot SP, Patenaude AM,Hebert S, Kabir N, Subramani PG, Jung S, Richard S, Kleinman C, Di Noia JM#. Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 1 regulates B cell fate after positive selection in the germinal center in mice. J Exp. Med. 2023 Sep 4;220(9):e20220381. doi: 10.1084/jem.20220381.
Litzler LC, Zahn A, Meli AP, Hébert S, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Sprumont A, Bois T, Kitamura D, Costantino S, King IL, Kleinman CL, Richard S, Di Noia JM#. PRMT5 is essential for B cell development and germinal center dynamics. Nature Communications, 2019 Jan 3;10(1):22. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07884-6.

Ludivine Litzler (2012-2018)

PhD , Department of Biochemistry and molecular medicine, Université de Montréal

Ludivine comes from Alsace in France. Graduated from the Ecole Supérioeure de Biotechnologie de Strasbourg she did an internship at Boheringer-Ingelheim in Laval and decided to stay in Montréal for graduate studies, joining the lab in 2012. After contributing to understand the e regulation of AID, she developed an research line into the roles of Protein arginine methyl transferases in B cells. She graduated in October 2018.

Ludivine did a postdoc at University of Basel, Switzerland, working on T cells in Dr Carolyn King's lab and then worked for the industry, currently a principal scientist at Novartis.

Publications

Litzler LC*, Zahn A*, Dionne KL, Sprumont A, Ferreira SR, Slattery MFR, Methot SP, Patenaude AM,Hebert S, Kabir N, Subramani PG, Jung S, Richard S, Kleinman C, Di Noia JM#. Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 1 regulates B cell fate after positive selection in the germinal center in mice. J Exp. Med. 2023 Sep 4;220(9):e20220381. doi: 10.1084/jem.20220381
Litzler LC, Zahn A, Meli AP, Hébert S, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Sprumont A, Bois T, Kitamura D, Costantino S, King IL, Kleinman CL, Richard S, Di Noia JM#. PRMT5 is essential for B cell development and germinal center dynamics. Nature Communications, 2019 Jan 3;10(1):22. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07884-6
Methot SP*, Litzler LC*, Subramani GP, Eranki A, Fifield H, Patenaude A-M, Gilmore JC, Santiago GE, Bagci H, Côté J-F, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM. A licensing step links AID to transcription elongation for B cell mutagenesis. Nature Communications, 2018, 9(1):1248. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03387-6.
Litzler LC, Methot SP, Patenaude AM, Zahn A, Di Noia JM. Cell-based Assays to Monitor AID Activity. Bioprotocol 2016; 6(3): e1724. http://www.bio-protocol.org/e1724.
Montamat-Sicotte D, Litzler LC, Abreu C, Safavi S, Zahn A, Orthwein A, Müschen M, Oppezzo P, Muñoz DP, Di Noia JM#. HSP90 inhibitors decrease AID levels and activity in mice and in human cells. Eur J Immunol. 2015, 45:2365-76.
Methot SP, Litzler LC, Trajtenberg F, Zahn A, Robert F, Pelletier J, Buschiazzo A, Magor BG, Di Noia JM#. Consecutive interactions with HSP90 and eEF1A1 underlie a functional maturation and storage pathway of AID in the cytoplasm. J. Exp. Med. 2015, 212:581-596.

Shiva Safavi (2012-2018)

PhD, Div of Experimental Medicine, McGill University

Shiva has a BSc and MSc in Biotechnology from Isfaham University of Technology in Iran. She joined us in 2012 to study how antibody diversification can produce cancer as a side effect and the role of the uracil DNA glycosylase UNG in B cell lymphoma. She graduated in July 2018.

Publications

Safavi S, Larouche A, Zahn A, Patenaude A-M, Domanska D, Dionne K, Rognes T, Dingler F, Kang S-K, Liu Y, Johnson N, Hébert J, Verdun RE, Rada CA, Vega F, Nilsen H, Di Noia JM#. The uracil-DNA glycosylase UNG protects the fitness of normal and cancer B cells expressing AID. NAR Cancer, 2020, 2(3), doi.org/10.1093/narcan/zcaa019.
Cortizas E*, Zahn A*, Safavi S*, Reed JA, Vega F, Di Noia JM#, Verdun RE#. UNG protects B cells from AID-induced telomere loss. J. Exp. Med. 2016, 213(11), 2459-2472.
Zahn A, Daugan M, Safavi S, Godin D, Cheong C, Lamarre A, Di Noia JM#. Separation of function between isotype switching and affinity maturation in vivo and circulating autoantibodies in UNG-deficient mice. J immunol. 2013;190:5949-60.

Stephen Methot (2010-2017)

PhD from McGIll University. Steve joined us in September 2010 from western Canada after graduating from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. He characterized of AID cytoplasmic retention and worked on AID targeting. He stayed long but prosper (see below!). He was supported by CIHR, Cole Foundation and FRSQ fellowships. He graduated as PhD from McGill University, Div of Experimental Medicine in October 2017.

Stephen was now a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr Susan Gasser, and then with Dr Helge Grosshans at the Friedrich Miescher Institute of biomedical research in Basel, Switzerland. He is currently by funded the Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione program.

Publications

Litzler LC*, Zahn A*, Dionne KL, Sprumont A, Ferreira SR, Slattery MFR, Methot SP, Patenaude AM, Hebert S, Kabir N, Subramani PG, Jung S, Richard S, Kleinman C, Di Noia JM#. Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 1 regulates B cell fate after positive selection in the germinal center in mice. J Exp. Med. 2023 Sep 4;220(9):e20220381. doi: 10.1084/jem.20220381.
Morande PE, Yan XJ, Sepulveda-Yanez JH, Seija N, Marquez ME, Sotelo NS, Abreu C, Crispo M, Fernández-Graña G, Rego N, Bois T, Methot SP, Palacios F, Remedi V, Rai KR, Buschiazzo A, Di Noia JM, Navarrete MA, Chiorazzi N, Oppezzo P. AID overexpression leads to aggressive murine CLL and non-Ig mutations that mirror human neoplasms. Blood. 2021 doi: 10.1182/blood.2020008654.
Litzler LC, Zahn A, Meli AP, Hébert S, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Sprumont A, Bois T, Kitamura D, Costantino S, King IL, Kleinman CL, Richard S, Di Noia JM#. PRMT5 is essential for B cell development and germinal center dynamics. Nature Communications, 2019 Jan 3;10(1):22. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07884-6
Methot SP*, Litzler LC*, Subramani GP, Eranki A, Fifield H, Patenaude A-M, Gilmore JC, Santiago GE, Bagci H, Côté J-F, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM. A licensing step links AID to transcription elongation for B cell mutagenesis. Nature Communications, 2018, 9(1):1248. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03387-6.
Methot P and Di Noia JM#. Molecular mechanisms of somatic hypermutation and class switch recombination. Adv Immunol, 133:37-87, 2017.
Litzler LC, Methot SP, Patenaude AM, Zahn A, Di Noia JM#. Cell-based Assays to Monitor AID Activity. Bioprotocol 2016; 6(3): e1724. http://www.bio-protocol.org/e1724.
Methot SP and Di Noia JM#. Pharmacological manipulation of AID. Oncortarget 2015; 6:26550-26551.
Methot SP, Litzler LC, Trajtenberg F, Zahn A, Robert F, Pelletier J, Buschiazzo A, Magor BG, Di Noia JM#. Consecutive interactions with HSP90 and eEF1A1 underlie a functional maturation and storage pathway of AID in the cytoplasm. J. Exp. Med. 2015, 212:581-596.
Zahn A, Eranki AK, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Fifield H, Cortizas EM, Foster P, Imai K, Durandy A, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM#. Activation induced deaminase C-terminal domain links DNA breaks to end protection and repair during class switch recombination. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014, 111(11):E988-E997.
Hu Y, Ericsson I, Torseth K, Methot SP, Sundheim O, Liabakk NB, Slupphaug G, Di Noia JM, Krokan HE, Kavli B. A Combined Nuclear and Nucleolar Localization Motif in Activation-Induced Cytidine Deaminase Controls Immunoglobulin Class Switching. J. Mol. Biol. 2013; 425:424-43.
Orthwein A, Zahn A, Methot S, Godin D, Conticello SG, Terada K and Di Noia JM#. Optimal functional levels of Activation Induced Deaminase specifically require the Hsp40 DnaJa1. EMBO J 2012; 31: 679-91.

Anil Kumar Eranki (2009-2012)

MSc from McGill University. Came from India to Canada and was raised in Montréal. After his BSc at McGill U, during which he was an summer student in the lab, Anil did his MSc degree with us. He investigated the mechanism by which some truncated versions of AID act as dominant negatives, helping to explain why they are transmitted in autosomal dominant fashion in immunodeficient patients. He then went to Medical School in Ireland and is now a doctor.

Publications

Methot SP*, Litzler LC*, Subramani GP, Eranki A, Fifield H, Patenaude A-M, Gilmore JC, Santiago GE, Bagci H, Côté J-F, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM. A licensing step links AID to transcription elongation for B cell mutagenesis. Nature Communications, 2018, 9(1):1248. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03387-6.
Zahn A*, Eranki AK*, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Fifield H, Cortizas EM, Foster P, Imai K, Durandy A, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM#. Activation induced deaminase C-terminal domain links DNA breaks to end protection and repair during class switch recombination. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014, 111(11):E988-E997.

Alexandre Orthwein (2007-2012)

PhD from Université de Montréal. Came from France. He did his BSc and MSc at U de Montréal and obtained his PhD with us after discovering a mechanism that regulates AID protein stability and the first means to pharmacologically reduce its activity. He wen on to the Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto as a PDF in the lab of Dr Daniel Durocher.

Alex run his own laboratory at the Lady Davis Institute - Montreal Jewish Hospital and was is a faculty member of the Department of Oncology, McGill University, and then moved to Atlanta, GA, USA for a position at Emory University, Department of radiation oncology.

Publications

Montamat-Sicotte D, Litzler LC, Abreu C, Safavi S, Zahn A, Orthwein A, Müschen M, Oppezzo P, Muñoz DP, Di Noia JM#. HSP90 inhibitors decrease AID levels and activity in mice and in human cells. Eur J Immunol. 2015, 45:2365-76.
Orthwein A, Zahn A, Methot S, Godin D, Conticello SG, Terada K and Di Noia JM#. Optimal functional levels of Activation Induced Deaminase specifically require the Hsp40 DnaJa1. EMBO J 2012; 31: 679-91.
Orthwein A and Di Noia JM#. AID: How much and where? Semin Immunol, 2012; 24:246-254.
Orthwein A and Di Noia JM#. Moduler la diversification des anticorps pour combattre certaines maladies. Médecine Sciences Amérique; 1(2), April 15th, 2012 (online journal in French).
Orthwein A, Patenaude A-M, Affar E-B, Lamarre A, Young JC and Di Noia, JM#. Regulation of Activation Induced Deaminase stability and antibody gene diversification by Hsp90. J. Exp. Med. 2010; 207:2751-2765.
Patenaude A-M, Orthwein, A, Yi Hu, Campo, VA, Kavli, B, Buschiazzo, A and Di Noia, JM#. Nuclear import and cytoplasmic retention of Activation Induced Deaminase. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 2009; 16:517-27.

Rotation students from the joint IRCM and Université de Montréal's "Molecular and Cellular Medicine" intensive Masters program

Tahere Javdani (MCM master 2014-2015).

MSc Université de Montreal. Performed oane 4 months rotation towards the 1 year MSc "Molecular and cellular medicine" option of the Molecular biology programs University of Montreal.

Charles Cohen (MCM master 2013-2014).

MSc Université de Montreal. Performed a 4 months rotation towards the 1 year MSc "Molecular and cellular medicine" option of the Molecular biology programs University of Montreal. He did his PhD at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience.

coming soon

Research assistant

Anne-Marie Patenaude (2007-2017)

Anne-Marie was born in Québec city and did her graduate studies and MSc in Montréal at McGill University. She came to our lab at the IRCM in 2007 after working as research assistant at McGill and did a lot of great work (see below!). In June 2017 she moved to Croatia and is working at the Glycoscience Research Laboratory of Genos, in Zagreb. We miss her!

Publications

Litzler LC*, Zahn A*, Dionne KL, Sprumont A, Ferreira SR, Slattery MFR, Methot SP, Patenaude AM, Hebert S, Kabir N, Subramani PG, Jung S, Richard S, Kleinman C, Di Noia JM#. Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 1 regulates B cell fate after positive selection in the germinal center in mice. J Exp. Med. 2023 Sep 4;220(9):e20220381. doi: 10.1084/jem.20220381Safavi S, Larouche A, Zahn A, Patenaude A-M, Domanska D, Dionne K, Rognes T, Dingler F, Kang S-K, Liu Y, Johnson N, Hébert J, Verdun RE, Rada CA, Vega F, Nilsen H, Di Noia JM#. The uracil-DNA glycosylase UNG protects the fitness of normal and cancer B cells expressing AID. NAR Cancer, 2020, 2(3), doi.org/10.1093/narcan/zcaa019Litzler LC, Zahn A, Meli AP, Hébert S, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Sprumont A, Bois T, Kitamura D, Costantino S, King IL, Kleinman CL, Richard S, Di Noia JM#. PRMT5 is essential for B cell development and germinal center dynamics. Nature Communications, 2019 Jan 3;10(1):22. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07884-6
Methot SP*, Litzler LC*, Subramani GP, Eranki A, Fifield H, Patenaude A-M, Gilmore JC, Santiago GE, Bagci H, Côté J-F, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM. A licensing step links AID to transcription elongation for B cell mutagenesis. Nature Communications, 2018, 9(1):1248. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03387-6.
Couturier A, Fleury H; Patenaude A-M; Bentley V; Rodrigue A; Coulombe Y; Joshi N; Pauty N; Berman J, Dellaire G; Di Noia, JM, Mes-Masson A-M, Masson J-Y. Roles for APRIN (PDS5B) in homologous recombination and in ovarian cancer prediction. Nucl. Acids Res. 2016, 44(22):10879-10897.
Litzler LC, Methot SP, Patenaude AM, Zahn A, Di Noia JM#. Cell-based Assays to Monitor AID Activity. Bioprotocol 2016; 6(3): e1724. http://www.bio-protocol.org/e1724.
Zahn A, Eranki AK, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Fifield H, Cortizas EM, Foster P, Imai K, Durandy A, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM#. Activation induced deaminase C-terminal domain links DNA breaks to end protection and repair during class switch recombination. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014, 111(11):E988-E997.
Cortizas EC, Zahn A, Hajjar ME, Patenaude AM, Di Noia JM. Verdun RE. Alternative End Joining and Classical-NHEJ Pathways Repair Different Types of Double Strand Breaks During Class Switch Recombination. J immunol. 2013;191:5751-63.
Campo VA, Patenaude AM, Kaden S, Horb L, Firka D, Jiricny J and Di Noia JM#. MSH6- or PMS2-deficiency causes re-replication in DT40 B cells, but it has little effect on immunoglobulin gene conversion or on repair of AID-generated uracils. Nucl. Acids Res. 2013; 41:3032-46.
Orthwein A, Patenaude A-M, Affar E-B, Lamarre A, Young JC and Di Noia, JM#. Regulation of Activation Induced Deaminase stability and antibody gene diversification by Hsp90. J. Exp. Med. 2010; 207:2751-2765.
Patenaude A-M and Di Noia JM#. The mechanisms regulating the subcellular localization of AID. Nucleus. 2010; 1(4):325-331.
Patenaude A-M, Orthwein, A, Yi Hu, Campo, VA, Kavli, B, Buschiazzo, A and Di Noia, JM#. Nuclear import and cytoplasmic retention of Activation Induced Deaminase. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 2009; 16:517-27.

Postdocs

Dr Ariane Larouche (2017-2020)

Ariane did a Ph.D on the genetic diversity of HCV during vertical transmission at the Department of microbiology and immunology of U de Montréal, with Dr Hugo Soudeyns. She joined our lab in October 2017 and contributed to demonstrate that the DNA repair enzyme UNG protects the fitness of B cell lymphomas cells that express AID, in a project funded by the LLSC. She is now a research associate at the research center of Ste-Justine Hospital.

Publications
Safavi S, Larouche A, Zahn A, Patenaude A-M, Domanska D, Dionne K, Rognes T, Dingler F, Kang S-K, Liu Y, Johnson N, Hébert J, Verdun RE, Rada CA, Vega F, Nilsen H, Di Noia JM#. The uracil-DNA glycosylase UNG protects the fitness of normal and cancer B cells expressing AID. NAR Cancer, 2020, 2(3), doi.org/10.1093/narcan/zcaa019.

Dr Debashree Chatterjee Adhikari (2014-2017)

Debashree came to Montréal after obtaining her BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Burdwan in West Bengal, and her PhD from the Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India. Her thesis was on the innate immune response of epithelial-dendritic cells cocultures to Vibrio colera. She studied the biochemistry of a novel cytidine deaminase family member in the process of publication. She is currently a postdoc at the CR-CHUM in Montreal with Dr Petronela Ancuta.

Publications

coming soon!

Dr Damien Montamat-Sicotte (2011-2013)

Damien is a Montréal native with BSc at U de Montréal, but picked up a proper British accent while doing a PhD at University of Birmingham and then as Wellcome trust fellow in London, working on the CD1b-restricted T cell response to Mycobacterium. Damien worked on a strategy to target AID in vivo by using chaperones inhibitors in a project funded by The Cancer Research Society.

After being a Research associate at McGill University, he is now a principal scientist at the company Caprion.

Publications

Montamat-Sicotte D, Litzler LC, Abreu C, Safavi S, Zahn A, Orthwein A, Müschen M, Oppezzo P, Muñoz DP, Di Noia JM#. HSP90 inhibitors decrease AID levels and activity in mice and in human cells. Eur J Immunol. 2015, 45:2365-76.
Montamat-Sicotte D, Palacios F, Di Noia JM# and Oppezzo P#. Origins and consequences of AID expression in lymphoid neoplasms. Current Immunology Reviews, 2013; 9(2):75-85.

Dr Tiago Chiavegatti (2010-2012).

He came from Brazil, after a PhD at UNIFESP. After some work on AID structure function for ~18 months, he decided to change career path and transitioned to work on Publich Health.

Dr Vanina Campo (2006-2009).

With a PhD from the Institute of Biotechnological Research (IIB-INTECH), Vanina worked on DNA repair pathways that participate in antibody gene diversification. She discovered that immunoglobulin gene conversion is protected from the anti-recombination effect of mismatch repair.

She is now an adjunct researcher from the Argentinian national council of scientific and technical research at the Universidad Nacional de General San Martín working on mRNA regulation in Trypanosoma cruzi.

Publications

Campo VA, Patenaude AM, Kaden S, Horb L, Firka D, Jiricny J and Di Noia JM#. MSH6- or PMS2-deficiency causes re-replication in DT40 B cells, but it has little effect on immunoglobulin gene conversion or on repair of AID-generated uracils. Nucl. Acids Res. 2013; 41:3032-46.
Patenaude A-M, Orthwein, A, Yi Hu, Campo, VA, Kavli, B, Buschiazzo, A and Di Noia, JM#. Nuclear import and cytoplasmic retention of Activation Induced Deaminase. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 2009; 16:517-27.

Summer / honors / Coop students

Mélanie Provencher (2022-2023)

Mélanie did her Bac at U de Montreal and did her honors research project for the Department of Biochemistry with us. She then stayed on as intern before going to Medical School. Mélanie contributed to two projects studying the mechanisms that enable AID mutagenic activity.

Dana Unninayar (2018-2019). McGill Interdepartmental honours in immunology.

Dana used multi-color immunofluorescence and microscopy images to analyze the organization of the germinal center in lymphoid organs from different mouse lines. She is now a student of medicine at the University of Ottawa.

coming soon

Fréderic Coulombe (2018). University of Sherbrooke. Co-op student May-August 2018.

Julian Gilmore (2016). 8 months Co-op student, McMasters University, London, Ontario: he went back to finish his Bac and is now a PhD student in Toronto.

Methot SP*, Litzler LC*, Subramani GP, Eranki A, Fifield H, Patenaude A-M, Gilmore JC, Santiago GE, Bagci H, Côté J-F, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM. A licensing step links AID to transcription elongation for B cell mutagenesis. Nature Communications, 2018, 9(1):1248. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03387-6.

Jean-Félix Côté (2014). University of Montreal, Department of biochemistry. Went to pharmacy school.

Charles Zhong (2013). McGill Interdepartmental honours, immunology and biochemistry. Went to law school.

Claudiu Serbanescu (2012). Co-op student, McMasters University, London, Ontario. Changed to MSc in biotechnology at U of Toronto.

Paul Foster (2010-2011). McGill Interdepartmental honours, immunology and biochemistry. Went on to medical school.

Zahn A*, Eranki AK*, Patenaude AM, Methot SP, Fifield H, Cortizas EM, Foster P, Imai K, Durandy A, Larijani M, Verdun RE, Di Noia JM#. Activation induced deaminase C-terminal domain links DNA breaks to end protection and repair during class switch recombination. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014, 111(11):E988-E997.

David Godin (2010-2011). Second year student from UQAM.

Zahn A, Daugan M, Safavi S, Godin D, Cheong C, Lamarre A, Di Noia JM#. Separation of function between isotype switching and affinity maturation in vivo and circulating autoantibodies in UNG-deficient mice. J immunol. 2013;190:5949-60.
Orthwein A, Zahn A, Methot S, Godin D, Conticello SG, Terada K and Di Noia JM#. Optimal functional levels of Activation Induced Deaminase specifically require the Hsp40 DnaJa1. EMBO J 2012; 31: 679-91.

Carlos Patino-Descovitch (2009). Second year at Biochemistry, U de Montréal.

Who has visited us?

Camila Centeno Camean 2019 (Student from the University of San Martin, UNSAM, Buenos Aires, Argentina) - To learn BioID for a collaboration with the laboratory of Dr Carlos Buscaglia at UNSAM's Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnológicas Dr Rodolfo Ugalde.

Antonio Sarno (Postdoctoral fellow from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology · Department of Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine @ Norway · Trondheim). To do some mouse work for a project about uracil in DNA in B cells.

Cecilia Abreu (M.Sc., from the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo, Uruguay). Cecilia visited from the lab of Dr Pablo Oppezzo, to do a small part of her PhD work on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.

Montamat-Sicotte D, Litzler LC, Abreu C, Safavi S, Zahn A, Orthwein A, Müschen M, Oppezzo P, Muñoz DP, Di Noia JM#. HSP90 inhibitors decrease AID levels and activity in mice and in human cells. Eur J Immunol. 2015, 45:2365-76.

Hu Yi (undergrad student from Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway). (came as part of our collaboration with Dr Hans Krokan's lab. He stayed for 6 months in 2007 and initiated the work on AID nuclear import).

Hu Y, Ericsson I, Torseth K, Methot SP, Sundheim O, Liabakk NB, Slupphaug G, Di Noia JM, Krokan HE, Kavli B. A Combined Nuclear and Nucleolar Localization Motif in Activation-Induced Cytidine Deaminase Controls Immunoglobulin Class Switching. J. Mol. Biol. 2013; 425:424-43.
Patenaude A-M, Orthwein, A, Yi Hu, Campo, VA, Kavli, B, Buschiazzo, A and Di Noia, JM#. Nuclear import and cytoplasmic retention of Activation Induced Deaminase. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 2009; 16:517-27.

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