In this episode of Genetics in Your World, GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee member Allie Hutchings interviews Dr. Evan Dewey of Winthrop University about the functions of Blm helicase N-terminal IDR. Read Dr. Dewey's paper titled, “Functions of the Bloom syndrome helicase N-terminal intrinsically disordered region,” published in the March 2025 issue of GENETICS: https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyaf005.

Music: Loopster Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Podcast Notes:

Bloom syndrome helicase (Blm) has important roles in maintaining genome stability. About half the protein is predicted to be intrinsically disordered (IDR), and its functions are poorly understood. The authors of this study identified regions that are locally conserved in closely related Drosophila species, then deleted these and assayed various functions. They find that each region is required for a subset of Blm functions. The authors’ modeling suggests these regions adopt structure in complex with Top2alpha and the results provide novel insights into Blm IDR functions.

Dr. Evan Dewey would like to acknowledge the following colleagues: Colleen C. Bereda, Dr. Jeff Sekelsky, Dr. Christopher A Johnston, Denise Soroka, Dr. Mitch McVey, Carolyn Turcotte, Dr. Nila Pazhayam, Mohamed A. Nasr, Priscila Santa Rosa, Susan McMahan, Dr. Robert J. Duronio, Dr. Gregory Matera, Dr. Dan McKay, and Dr. Richard Cripps.

Thank you to the GSA Early Career Scientist Multimedia Subcommittee, in particular the production team who worked on this episode: Allie Hutchings, Interviewer; Sarah Shahba and Laetitia Chauve, Researchers.

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