Our manuscript titled Metazoan lagging-strand DNA synthesis is distributive has been published in Cell (available online now). In this paper we revisit the textbook model of lagging strand DNA synthesis in higher eukaryotes, also known as the trombone model. It has long been thought/assumed that the lagging strand polymerases PolA and PolD are stably tethered to the replisome, and that the same PolA/D molecule is repeatedly reused to synthesize many (hundreds) of Okazaki fragments. In this study, Luke showed that neither PolA nor PolD are reused, and that each Okazaki fragment requires the recruitment of a new PolA and PolD molecule, challenging the widely-accepted trombone model. Our work illustrates how visualizing the dynamics of key factors involved in genome maintenance can overturn long-standing models in the field.
Congratulations to the first author - Luke Lynch (a graduate student in our lab, who recently started his postdoc in the Walter lab at Harvard Medical School) and to the second author - Jinho Park (a postdoc in our lab, who is now on the academic job market).
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Our department held its retreat at the Chaminade Resort near Santa Cruz CA on Sept. 9-11 2026. Over 100 department members attended, with dozens of trainee talks and posters being presented. Each year the department awards "Best Talk", "Best Paper", and "Best Poster" prizes. We're delighted to announce that the Chistol lab "cleaned up" at this year's retreat: Dr. Benjamin Duewell received the "Best Talk" prize, while Dr. Jinho Park received the "Best Paper" prize (manuscript accepted for publication in Nature, still under embargo for the next ~month).
Congratulations to Jinho and Benjamin!!!
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We are excited to announce that the "sequel" to our 2024 Cell paper has been accepted for publication in Nature Communications (September 2026).
Congratulations to the entire Replication Initiation Team!
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Our manuscript titled "Single-Molecule Imaging Reveals the Mechanism of Bidirectional Replication Initiation in Metazoa" was officially accepted for publication in Cell. The project started in the summer of 2020 (that first glorious COVID summer) when Scott started imaging how GINS is recruited to replication origins. He later did the same for Cdc45. In 2021 Riki joined the project and focused on imaging firing factors (TopBP1, RecQL4, and finally DONSON). It took a while to explore various hypotheses, sort out various technical difficulties, develop new assays, and develop new tools for analyzing the data. We submitted the paper in November 2023, and after a somewhat bumpy review process, the paper was accepted on 13th of May 2024 :)
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Tomoko, a 1st year CSB graduate student, just started her 2-month rotation in our lab. She will be working with Riki on understanding the mechanism of the CMG helicase activation. We're delighted to double the Japanese contingent of our lab :)
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Scott has joined our lab from the Biophysics department as our newest graduate student.
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Riki is joining us after having recently completed his PhD at Osaka University in Japan.
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Jordan Valgardson - a first year student in our home department of Chemical and Systems Biology is now officially rotating in the lab. He's leveling up his Single-Molecule Skills already and we look forward to getting some science done together in the next 2 months.
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Travis Lantz from Chemical and Systems Biology is starting a 2-month stint in our lab as a visiting student. He will be working with Linda to purify fluorescent proteins for some proof-of-principle experiments. In the meantime they are battling the cloning gremlins. Hang in there Travis!
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Luke Lynch from the Biochemistry PhD program will be spending the next 10 weeks studying how the replicative CMG helicase is regulated during replication stress - and we couldn't be more excited!
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