Jesse Dixon

About

Jesse Dixon is an Associate Professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He completed his undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology at Princeton University. He then earned both his MD and PhD at the University of California San Diego, where his PhD research in Biomedical Sciences was conducted in the lab of Bing Ren, focusing on genome-wide principles of higher-order chromatin structure. Jesse Dixon began his independent career at the Salk Institute as an independent fellow through the Helmsley Salk Fellows Program. His research centers on understanding the organization and regulation of the genome, particularly the principles governing chromatin architecture and its impact on gene expression.

Research topics

• Biology
• Cell biology
• Chemistry
• Cancer research
• Computational biology
• Genetics

Selected publications

• Ancient drug curcumin impedes 26S proteasome activity by direct inhibition of dual-specificity tyrosine-regulated kinase 2

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2018-07-09 · 178 citations

  articleOpen access

  , has been in medicinal use since ancient times. However, the therapeutic targets and signaling cascades modulated by curcumin have been enigmatic despite extensive research. Here we identify dual-specificity tyrosine-regulated kinase 2 (DYRK2), a positive regulator of the 26S proteasome, as a direct target of curcumin. Curcumin occupies the ATP-binding pocket of DYRK2 in the cocrystal structure, and it potently and specifically inhibits DYRK2 over 139 other kinases tested in vitro. As a result,…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Structure and evolution of the Fam20 kinases

  Nature Communications · 2018-03-19 · 84 citations

  articleOpen access

  The Fam20 proteins are novel kinases that phosphorylate secreted proteins and proteoglycans. Fam20C phosphorylates hundreds of secreted proteins and is activated by the pseudokinase Fam20A. Fam20B phosphorylates a xylose residue to regulate proteoglycan synthesis. Despite these wide-ranging and important functions, the molecular and structural basis for the regulation and substrate specificity of these kinases are unknown. Here we report molecular characterizations of all three Fam20 kinases, an…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Hippo pathway regulation by phosphatidylinositol transfer protein and phosphoinositides

  Nature Chemical Biology · 2022 · 63 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Inhibition of dual-specificity tyrosine phosphorylation-regulated kinase 2 perturbs 26S proteasome-addicted neoplastic progression

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2019-11-21 · 61 citations

  articleOpen access

  Dependence on the 26S proteasome is an Achilles' heel for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and multiple myeloma (MM). The therapeutic proteasome inhibitor, bortezomib, successfully targets MM but often leads to drug-resistant disease relapse and fails in breast cancer. Here we show that a 26S proteasome-regulating kinase, DYRK2, is a therapeutic target for both MM and TNBC. Genome editing or small-molecule mediated inhibition of DYRK2 significantly reduces 26S proteasome activity, bypasses b…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reversible phosphorylation of Rpn1 regulates 26S proteasome assembly and function

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2019-12-16 · 58 citations

  articleOpen access

  The fundamental importance of the 26S proteasome in health and disease suggests that its function must be finely controlled, and yet our knowledge about proteasome regulation remains limited. Posttranslational modifications, especially phosphorylation, of proteasome subunits have been shown to impact proteasome function through different mechanisms, although the vast majority of proteasome phosphorylation events have not been studied. Here, we have characterized 1 of the most frequently detected…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01GM090328

  NIH · $1.3M · 2015

• NIH Grant R01AI060662

  NIH · $1.8M · 2010

• NIH Grant R01AM018849

  NIH · $134k · 1989

Frequent coauthors

• Carolyn A. Worby

  University of California, San Diego

  78 shared

• C D Minth

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  46 shared

• Bernard A. Roos

  44 shared

• Philip Andrews

  University of Alaska Fairbanks

  40 shared

• Randy S. Haun

  Arkana Laboratories

  38 shared

• Sandra E. Wiley

  MEI Pharma (United States)

  36 shared

• Junyu Xiao

  Peking University

  35 shared

• Tomohiko Maehama

  Kobe University

  33 shared

Labs

• Dixon LabPI

  1-2 sentence research focus

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