Toxicant Susceptibility

One reason that individuals vary in how susceptible they are to toxic effects of chemicals is because they differ in genes that are affected by the chemicals. Cancers and other disease can arise from such interactions between environmental agents and genes. How agents affect the cell is likely to influence which genes that are affected. At present, understanding of how many chemicals affect cells is limited.

As part of Project 2 of the UC Berkeley Superfund Research Program, we use yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to investigate the targets for toxic chemicals in eukaryotic cells.  We use parallel deletion analysis or a “barcoding” approach to simultaneously determine the relative importance of individual genes in susceptibility to toxicant exposure. We are focusing on toxic metals (e.g. copper, cadmium, iron), metalloids (e.g. arsenicial compounds) and aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene and its metabolites).  This method will identify candidates for genes that contribute to susceptibility to environmental agents.

The human homologs or functional orthologs of these yeast genes will then be tested in human cells lines for a possible role in toxicant susceptibility. We hope to identify genes that contribute to human susceptibility to chemicals and their metabolites.