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Faculty Detail    
Name BO XU
  
Campus Address VH G019 Zip 0019
Phone
E-mail  bxu@uab.edu
Other websites
     

Education
Medical School  Norman Bethune University of Medical Sciences      MB 
Graduate  Tianjin Medical University      MS 
Graduate  Peking Union Medical College      PhD 


Faculty Appointment(s)
Appointment Type Department Division Rank
Primary  Pathology   Molecular & Cellular Pathology Professor Adjunct
Secondary  Cell, Developmntl, & Integrative Biology  Cell, Developmntl, & Integrative Biology Professor Adjunct

Graduate Biomedical Sciences Affiliations
Cancer Biology 
Medical Scientist Training Program 

Biographical Sketch 
Dr. Bo Xu is Distinguished Fellow and Chairman of Department of Oncology at Southern Research Institute (SRI), where he heads the long-standing cancer research program. Dr. Xu graduated from the Norman Bethune University of Medical Sciences with a bachelor’s degree in medicine (1990) and received a master’s degree from Tianjin Medical University in 1995. He subsequently obtained a Ph.D. degree (1998) in Radiation Oncology from the Peking Union Medical College and completed his postdoctoral training at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. In 2002, Dr. Xu started his independent research at the LSU Health Sciences Center -New Orleans as Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics. He joined SRI in 2006, serving as the Head of the Molecular Radiobiology Laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Between 2009-2012, he had served as Senior Member and Director of the Molecular Radiation Oncology Laboratory in The Methodist Hospital Research Institute. Dr. Xu rejoined SRI in August 2012 as Head of the Cancer Research Program and Chair of Department of Oncology.



Research/Clinical Interest
Title
Mechanisms of the DNA damage response
Description
Dr. Xu’s research team focuses on studying mechanisms that control cellular response to DNA damage agents. These regulatory events are central to two of the major issues in the field of cancer biology: 1) how and when cancers start and progress; and 2) what determines the sensitivity of tumors to therapeutic interventions. In terms of cancer causation, the critical role for DNA damage responses is demonstrated by the fact that a number of human cancer susceptibility syndromes are caused by inherited mutations affecting proteins involved in DNA damage responses. For example, inherited mutations in damage-response genes can lead to skin cancers (xeroderma pigmentosum genes), leukemia and lymphoma (ATM, NBS1 and Fanconi anemia genes), breast and ovarian cancers (p53, BRCA1, BRCA2), colon cancers (mismatch repair genes), and brain tumors (p53). The epidemiological observation that exposure to environmental DNA damaging agents contributes to at least 80% of all human cancers further illustrates the importance of these damage responses in cancer causation. Since many cancer therapeutic interventions attempt to kill tumors by targeting the DNA, gene products involved in DNA damage-response pathways are also predictably critical for determining therapeutic outcomes. Thus, elucidation of the mechanisms involved in DNA damage-response pathways has obvious importance both for understanding cancer causation and for eliciting cancer cures.

Selected Publications 
Publication PUBMEDID
1. Zhang, D.; Wang, H.; Sun, M.; Yang, J.; Zhang, W.; Han, S.; Xu, B*. Speckle-type POZ protein, SPOP, is involved in the DNA damage response. Carcinogenesis. 2014 Jan 22. [Epub ahead of print]
2. Binoj C. Nair, Samaya R. Krishnan, Gangadhara R. Sareddy, Monica Mann, Bo Xu, Mohan Natarajan, Vera Gorbunova, Maria Jasin, Darrell Brann, Rajeshwar R. Tekmal and Ratna K. Vadlamudi, Proline, Glutamic acid, Leucine rich Protein 1 (PELP1) is essential for optimal p53-mediated DNA Damage Response. Cell Death and Differentiation, in Press, 2014
3. Chunying Yang, Xiaojing Guo, Haibo Wang, David Engler, Wei Zhang , and Bo Xu*. Mad1 Serine 214 phosphorylation is critical for its role in mitotic spindle checkpoint activation. Carcinogenesis. 2014 Apr 11. [Epub ahead of print]
4. Xiaojing Guo , Chunying Yang , Xiaolong Qian , Ting Lei , Yaqing Li , Haifa Shen , Li Fu and Bo Xu*. Estrogen Receptor Alpha regulates ATM expression through miRNAs in breast cancer, Clinical Cancer Research, Published Online First July 15, 2013; doi:10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-12-3700
5. Benjamin A. Siddoway, Haider F. Altimimi, Hailong Hou, Ronald S. Petralia, Bo Xu, David Stellwagen & Houhui Xia. An Essential Role for Inhibitor-2-Regulated Protein Phosphatase 1 in Synaptic Downscaling. Journal of Neuroscience. 2013 Jul 3;33(27):11206-11. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5241-12.2013.
6. Rebecca Boohaker, Xiaoli Cui, Murray Stackhouse, and Bo Xu*. ATM-mediated Snail Serine 100 phosphorylation regulates cellular radiosensitivity. Radiotherapy and Oncology, in press, 2013 DOI 10.1016/j.radonc.2013.06.017
7. Mianen Sun, Xiaojing Guo, Xiaolong Qian, Haibo Wang, Chunying Yang, Kathryn L. Brinkman, Monica Serrano-Gonzalez, Richard S. Jope, Binhua Zhou, David A. Engler, Ming Zhan, Stephen T.C. Wong, Li Fu, and Bo Xu*. Activation of the ATM-Snail pathway promotes breast cancer metastasis. Journal Of Molecular Cell Biology, 2012 Oct;4(5):304-15
8. Chun-ying Yang , Mike Lee, Jessie Tang, Xiaoli Cui, Paula Allen, Françoise Bontemps, William B. Parker, and Bo Xu*. Deoxycytidine kinase regulates the G2M checkpoint through interaction with Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 1 in response to DNA damage. Nucleic Acids Research, 2012 Oct;40(19):9621-32
9. Chunying Yang, Xi Tang, Xiaojing Guo, Yohei Niikura, Katsumi Kitagawa, Kemi Cui, Stephen T.C. Wong, Li Fu, and Bo Xu. Aurora-B Mediated ATM Serine 1403 Phosphorylation Is Required For Mitotic ATM Activation and the Spindle Checkpoint. Molecular Cell, 2011 Nov 18; 44(4):597-608.
10. Chunying Yang, Haibo Wang, Yiran Xu, Kathryn Brinkman, Stephen Wong and Bo Xu*. The kinetochore protein Bub1 is required for DNA damage responses. DNA Repair 2012 Feb 1; 11(2):185-91.
11. Xiaonan Sun, Chunying Yang, Hai Liu, Wang Qi, Shi-Xiu Wu, Xia Li, Tian Xie, Kathryn, L. Brinkman, Bin S. Teh, E. Brain Butler, Bo Xu* and Shu Zheng*. Identification and Characterization of a Small Inhibitory Peptide that can Target DNA-PKcs Autophosphorylation and Increase Tumor Radiosensitivity. International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics. 2012 Dec 1;84(5):1212-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2012.01.092. Epub 2012 May 15.
12. Jinping Liu, Shukun Luo, Hongchang Zhao, Ji Liao1, Jing Li, Chunying Yang, Bo Xu, David F. Stern, Xingzhi Xu, and Keqiong Ye, Structural mechanism of the phosphorylation-dependent dimerization of the MDC1 forkhead-associated domain. Nucleic Acids Research, 2012 May; 40(9):3898-912.
13. Hiromichi Ishiyama, Takahiro Hirayama, Pavan Jhaveri, Takefumi Satoh, Arnold C. Paulino, Bo Xu, E. Brian Butler, and Bin S. Teh. Is There an Increase in Genitourinary Toxicity in Patients Treated With Transurethral Resection of the Prostate and Radiotherapy? A Systematic Review. American Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2012. Jun 14. [Epub ahead of print]
14. Dever SM, Golding SE, Rosenberg E, Adams BR, Idowu MO, Quillin JM, Valerie N, Xu B, Povirk LF, Valerie K. Mutations in the BRCT binding site of BRCA1 result in hyper-recombination. Aging (Albany NY). 2011 May;3(5):515-32.
15. Chunzhi Zhang, Chunsheng Kang, Ping Wang, Yongzhen Cao, Zhonghong Lv, Shizhu Yu, Guangxiu Wang, Anling Zhang, Zhifan Jia, Lei Han, Chunying Yang, Hiromichi Ishiyama, Bin S. Teh, Bo Xu, Peiyu Pu. MicroRNA-221/-222 regulate radiation sensitivity by targeting the PTEN pathway. International Journal Of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics. 2011 May 1;80(1):240-8.
16. Yuanhong Gao, Hiromichi Ishiyama, Mianen Sun, Kathryn Brinkman, Xiaozhen Wang, Julie Zhu, Weiyuan Mai, Ying Huang, Daniel Floryk, Michael Ittmann, Timothy C. Thompson, E. Brian Butler, Bo Xu, and Bin S. Teh. The alkylphospholipid, perifosine, radiosensitizes prostate cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. Radiation Oncology. 2011 Apr 15;6(1):39.
17. Tang X, Hui ZG, Cui XL, Garg R, Kastan MB, Xu B. A novel ATM-dependent pathway regulates protein phosphatase 1 in response to DNA damage. Mol Cell Biol. 2008 Apr;28(8):2559-66.
18. Cariveau MJ, Stackhouse M, Cui XL, Tiwari K, Waud W, Secrist JA 3rd, Xu B. Clofarabine acts as radiosensitizer in vitro and in vivo by interfering with DNA damage response. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2008 Jan 1;70(1):213-20.
19. Cariveau MJ, Tang X, Cui XL, Xu B. Characterization of an NBS1 C-terminal peptide that can inhibit ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM)-mediated DNA damage responses and enhance radiosensitivity. Mol Pharmacol. 2007 Aug;72(2):320-6
20. Gasior SL, Wakeman TP, Xu B, Deininger PL. The human LINE-1 retrotransposon creates DNA double-strand breaks. J Mol Biol. 2006 Apr 14;357(5):1383-93.
21. Xu B, Kastan MB. Analyzing cell cycle checkpoints after ionizing radiation. Methods Mol Biol. 2004;281:283-92.
22. Arlt MF, Xu B, Durkin SG, Casper AM, Kastan MB, Glover TW. BRCA1 is required for common- fragile-site stability via its G2/M checkpoint function. Mol Cell Biol. 2004 Aug;24(15):6701-9.
23. Garg R, Geng CD, Miller JL, Callens S, Tang X, Appel B, Xu B. Molecular cloning and characterization of the catalytic domain of zebrafish homologue of the ataxia-telangiectasia mutated gene. Mol Cancer Res. 2004 Jun;2(6):348-53.
24. Garg R, Callens S, Lim DS, Canman CE, Kastan MB, Xu B. Chromatin association of rad17 is required for an ataxia telangiectasia and rad-related kinase-mediated S-phase checkpoint in response to low-dose ultraviolet radiation. Mol Cancer Res. 2004 Jun;2(6):362-9.
25. Lee JH, Xu B, Lee CH, Ahn JY, Song MS, Lee H, Canman CE, Lee JS, Kastan MB, Lim DS. Distinct functions of Nijmegen breakage syndrome in ataxia telangiectasia mutated-dependent responses to DNA damage. Mol Cancer Res. 2003 Jul;1(9):674-81.
26. Xu B, O'Donnell AH, Kim ST, Kastan MB. Phosphorylation of serine 1387 in Brca1 is specifically required for the Atm-mediated S-phase checkpoint after ionizing irradiation. Cancer Res. 2002 Aug 15;62(16):4588-91.
27. Taniguchi T, Garcia-Higuera I, Xu B, Andreassen PR, Gregory RC, Kim ST, Lane WS, Kastan MB, D'Andrea AD. Convergence of the fanconi anemia and ataxia telangiectasia signaling pathways. Cell. 2002 May 17;109(4):459-72.
28. Kim ST, Xu B, Kastan MB. Involvement of the cohesin protein, Smc1, in Atm-dependent and independent responses to DNA damage. Genes Dev. 2002 Mar 1;16(5):560-70.
29. Xu B, Kim St, Kastan MB. Involvement of Brca1 in S-phase and G(2)-phase checkpoints after ionizing irradiation. Mol Cell Biol. 2001 May;21(10):3445-50.
30. Lim DS, Kim ST, Xu B, Maser RS, Lin J, Petrini JH, Kastan MB. ATM phosphorylates p95/nbs1 in an S-phase checkpoint pathway. Nature. 2000 Apr 6; 404(6778):613-7.
 		  
 

Keywords
Genome stability, DNA damage response, mitosis, ATM