University of Virginia Health System

Goals of our research are two in number: Development of new instrumentation and methods for the sequence analysis of proteins and peptides in mixtures at the low femtomole level by tandem mass spectrometry and identification of processed antigens presented to the immune system in association with class I and class II MHC molecules. Specific aims of the latter research include melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, ovarian cancer, and prostate cancer. Also under investigation are the processed antigens presented to the immune system from such disease states as AIDS and malaria plus autoimmune disorders such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

 REFERENCES:  Selected publications -

• J.P. Carson, M. Behnam, J.N. Sutton, C. Du, X. Wang, D.F. Hunt, M.J. Weber and G. Kulik. Smac is Required for Cytochrome-c Induced Apoptosis in Prostate LNCaP Cells. Cancer Res. 2002. 62: 18-23.
• F. Dragon, P.A. C. Post, J.E.G. Gallagher, B.M. Mitchell, K.A. Porwancher, K.A. Wehner, R.E. Settlage, J. Shabanowitz, Y. Osheim, A.L. Beyer, D.F. Hunt, S.J. Baserga. The U3 Processome is a Large Nucleolar Ribonucleoprotein Required for 18S rRNA Biogenesis, Nature 2002.
• S.B. Ficarro, M.L. McCleland, P.T. Stukenberg, D.J. Burke, M.M. Ross, J. Shabanowitz, D. F. Hunt, and F.M. White. Phosphoproteome Analysis by Mass Spectrometry: Application to S. cerevisiae. Nature Biotechnology. 2002.
• R.D. Strahl, P.A. Grant, S.D. Briggs, Z.W. Sun, J.R. Bone, J.A. Caldwell, S. Mollah, R.G. Cook, J. Shabanowitz, D.F. Hunt, and C.D. Allis. Set2 Is a Nucleosomal Histone H3-Selective Methyltransferase That Mediates Transcriptional Repression. Molecular and Cellular Biology. 2002.

A full and current list of Dr. Hunt's publications can be found at PubMed