Bjoern Schwer, MD, PhD

Associate Professor
Neurological Surgery
+1 415 476-6786

Bjoern Schwer, MD, PhD is investigating molecular processes that affect genomic stability in developing and mature neural lineage cells, and the role of these processes in development, aging and cancers of the brain.

Publications: 

Endogenous neuronal DNA double-strand breaks are not sufficient to drive brain aging and neurodegeneration.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Cohen S, Cheradame L, Pratt KJB, Collins S, Barillas A, Carlson A, Ramani V, Legube G, Villeda SA, Mullins RD, Schwer B

PRDM6 promotes medulloblastoma by repressing chromatin accessibility and altering gene expression.

Scientific reports

Schmidt C, Cohen S, Gudenas BL, Husain S, Carlson A, Westelman S, Wang L, Phillips JJ, Northcott PA, Weiss WA, Schwer B

MDB-32. PRDM6 PROMOTES MEDULLOBLASTOMA FORMATION IN NEUROEPITHELIAL STEM CELLS AND IS A CHROMATIN REPRESSOR BY BINDING TO HISTONE H3 LYSINE 27 TRIMETHYLATION MARKS.

Neuro-oncology

Christin Schmidt, Sarah Cohen, Brian L Gudenas, Sarah Husain, Annika Carlson, Samantha Westelman, Linyu Wang, Joanna J Phillips, Paul A Northcott, William A Weiss, Bjoern Schwer

Type-I-interferon-responsive microglia shape cortical development and behavior.

Cell

Escoubas CC, Dorman LC, Nguyen PT, Lagares-Linares C, Nakajo H, Anderson SR, Barron JJ, Wade SD, Cuevas B, Vainchtein ID, Silva NJ, Guajardo R, Xiao Y, Lidsky PV, Wang EY, Rivera BM, Taloma SE, Kim DK, Kaminskaya E, Nakao-Inoue H, Schwer B, Arnold TD, Molofsky AB, Condello C, Andino R, Nowakowski TJ, Molofsky AV

PRDM6 promotes medulloblastoma by repressing chromatin accessibility and altering gene expression.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Schmidt C, Cohen S, Gudenas BL, Husain S, Carlson A, Westelman S, Wang L, Phillips JJ, Northcott PA, Weiss WA, Schwer B

MDB-09. IMPACT OF PRDM6 ON CHROMATIN ACCESSIBILITY, GENE EXPRESSION, AND MEDULLOBLASTOMA FORMATION.

Neuro-oncology

Christin Schmidt, Sarah Husain, Annika Carlson, Sarah Cohen, Samantha Westelman, Linyu Wang, William Weiss, Bjoern Schwer

Type I interferon responsive microglia shape cortical development and behavior.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Escoubas CC, Dorman LC, Nguyen PT, Lagares-Linares C, Nakajo H, Anderson SR, Cuevas B, Vainchtein ID, Silva NJ, Xiao Y, Lidsky PV, Wang EY, Taloma SE, Nakao-Inoue H, Schwer B, Andino R, Nowakowski TJ, Molofsky AV

MODL-32. IMPACT OF PRDM6 ON CHROMATIN ACCESSIBILITY, GENE EXPRESSION, AND MEDULLOBLASTOMA FORMATION.

Neuro-oncology

Christin Schmidt, Sarah Husain, Annika Carlson, Sarah Cohen, Samantha Westelman, Linyu Wang, William Weiss, Bjoern Schwer

Editorial: Genomic Instability and Neurodegeneration.

Frontiers in aging neuroscience

Fuchs J, Schwer B, El-Khamisy SF

Novel EGFRvIII-CAR transgenic mice for rigorous preclinical studies in syngeneic mice.

Neuro-oncology

Chuntova P, Hou Y, Naka R, Yamamichi A, Chen T, Goretsky Y, Hatae R, Nejo T, Kohanbash G, Mende AL, Montoya M, Downey KM, Diebold D, Skinner J, Liang HE, Schwer B, Okada H

Topoisomerase I inhibition and peripheral nerve injury induce DNA breaks and ATF3-associated axon regeneration in sensory neurons.

Cell reports

Cheng YC, Snavely A, Barrett LB, Zhang X, Herman C, Frost DJ, Riva P, Tochitsky I, Kawaguchi R, Singh B, Ivanis J, Huebner EA, Arvanites A, Oza V, Davidow L, Maeda R, Sakuma M, Grantham A, Wang Q, Chang AN, Pfaff K, Costigan M, Coppola G, Rubin LL, Schwer B, Alt FW, Woolf CJ

BIOL-11. THE ROLE OF ABERRANT EXPRESSION OF PRDM6 IN THE DEVELOPING CEREBELLUM AND IN GROUP 4 MEDULLOBLASTOMA.

Neuro-oncology

Christin Schmidt, Annika Carlson, William Weiss, Bjoern Schwer

OMIC-03. TRANSLATIONAL CONTROL IN MYC AND MYCN MEDULLOBLASTOMA.

Neuro-oncology

Christin Schmidt, Albertas Navickas, Frederique Zindy, Dana Farmer, Davide Ruggero, Hani Goodarzi, Martine F Roussel, Bjoern Schwer, William Weiss

TMOD-28. NEW APPROACHES FOR ELUCIDATING MEDULLOBLASTOMA DEVELOPMENT VIA HINDBRAIN BLASTOCYST COMPLEMENTATION.

Neuro-oncology

Christin Schmidt, Annika Carlson, William Weiss, Bjoern Schwer

Direct analysis of brain phenotypes via neural blastocyst complementation.

Nature protocols

Dai HQ, Liang Z, Chang AN, Chapdelaine-Williams AM, Alvarado B, Pollen AA, Alt FW, Schwer B

Neural blastocyst complementation enables mouse forebrain organogenesis.

Nature

Chang AN, Liang Z, Dai HQ, Chapdelaine-Williams AM, Andrews N, Bronson RT, Schwer B, Alt FW

Three classes of recurrent DNA break clusters in brain progenitors identified by 3D proximity-based break joining assay.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Wei PC, Lee CS, Du Z, Schwer B, Zhang Y, Kao J, Zurita J, Alt FW

Sirt4 is a mitochondrial regulator of metabolism and lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Wood JG, Schwer B, Wickremesinghe PC, Hartnett DA, Burhenn L, Garcia M, Li M, Verdin E, Helfand SL

Editorial: DNA damage & immunity.

Mechanisms of ageing and development

Garinis GA, Schwer B, Schumacher B

Transcription-associated processes cause DNA double-strand breaks and translocations in neural stem/progenitor cells.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Schwer B, Wei PC, Chang AN, Kao J, Du Z, Meyers RM, Alt FW

Long Neural Genes Harbor Recurrent DNA Break Clusters in Neural Stem/Progenitor Cells.

Cell

Wei PC, Chang AN, Kao J, Du Z, Meyers RM, Alt FW, Schwer B

IgH class switching exploits a general property of two DNA breaks to be joined in cis over long chromosomal distances.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Gostissa M, Schwer B, Chang A, Dong J, Meyers RM, Marecki GT, Choi VW, Chiarle R, Zarrin AA, Alt FW

SIRT6 modulates paclitaxel and epirubicin resistance and survival in breast cancer.

Carcinogenesis

Khongkow M, Olmos Y, Gong C, Gomes AR, Monteiro LJ, Yagüe E, Cavaco TB, Khongkow P, Man EP, Laohasinnarong S, Koo CY, Harada-Shoji N, Tsang JW, Coombes RC, Schwer B, Khoo US, Lam EW

Essential developmental, genomic stability, and tumour suppressor functions of the mouse orthologue of hSSB1/NABP2.

PLoS genetics

Shi W, Bain AL, Schwer B, Al-Ejeh F, Smith C, Wong L, Chai H, Miranda MS, Ho U, Kawaguchi M, Miura Y, Finnie JW, Wall M, Heierhorst J, Wicking C, Spring KJ, Alt FW, Khanna KK

Functional redundancy between the XLF and DNA-PKcs DNA repair factors in V(D)J recombination and nonhomologous DNA end joining.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Oksenych V, Kumar V, Liu X, Guo C, Schwer B, Zha S, Alt FW

Functional redundancy between repair factor XLF and damage response mediator 53BP1 in V(D)J recombination and DNA repair.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Oksenych V, Alt FW, Kumar V, Schwer B, Wesemann DR, Hansen E, Patel H, Su A, Guo C

Robust chromosomal DNA repair via alternative end-joining in the absence of X-ray repair cross-complementing protein 1 (XRCC1).

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Boboila C, Oksenych V, Gostissa M, Wang JH, Zha S, Zhang Y, Chai H, Lee CS, Jankovic M, Saez LM, Nussenzweig MC, McKinnon PJ, Alt FW, Schwer B

SIRT3 regulates mitochondrial protein acetylation and intermediary metabolism.

Cold Spring Harbor symposia on quantitative biology

Hirschey MD, Shimazu T, Huang JY, Schwer B, Verdin E

SIRT3 deficiency and mitochondrial protein hyperacetylation accelerate the development of the metabolic syndrome.

Molecular cell

Hirschey MD, Shimazu T, Jing E, Grueter CA, Collins AM, Aouizerat B, Stancáková A, Goetzman E, Lam MM, Schwer B, Stevens RD, Muehlbauer MJ, Kakar S, Bass NM, Kuusisto J, Laakso M, Alt FW, Newgard CB, Farese RV, Kahn CR, Verdin E

The transcription factor BATF controls the global regulators of class-switch recombination in both B cells and T cells.

Nature immunology

Ise W, Kohyama M, Schraml BU, Zhang T, Schwer B, Basu U, Alt FW, Tang J, Oltz EM, Murphy TL, Murphy KM

SIRT3 deacetylates mitochondrial 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA synthase 2 and regulates ketone body production.

Cell metabolism

Shimazu T, Hirschey MD, Hua L, Dittenhafer-Reed KE, Schwer B, Lombard DB, Li Y, Bunkenborg J, Alt FW, Denu JM, Jacobson MP, Verdin E

Neural sirtuin 6 (Sirt6) ablation attenuates somatic growth and causes obesity.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Schwer B, Schumacher B, Lombard DB, Xiao C, Kurtev MV, Gao J, Schneider JI, Chai H, Bronson RT, Tsai LH, Deng CX, Alt FW

SIRT3 regulates mitochondrial fatty-acid oxidation by reversible enzyme deacetylation.

Nature

Hirschey MD, Shimazu T, Goetzman E, Jing E, Schwer B, Lombard DB, Grueter CA, Harris C, Biddinger S, Ilkayeva OR, Stevens RD, Li Y, Saha AK, Ruderman NB, Bain JR, Newgard CB, Farese RV, Alt FW, Kahn CR, Verdin E

Calorie restriction alters mitochondrial protein acetylation.

Aging cell

Schwer B, Eckersdorff M, Li Y, Silva JC, Fermin D, Kurtev MV, Giallourakis C, Comb MJ, Alt FW, Lombard DB

Regulation of activation-induced cytidine deaminase DNA deamination activity in B-cells by Ser38 phosphorylation.

Biochemical Society Transactions

Basu U, Franklin A, Schwer B, Cheng HL, Chaudhuri J, Alt FW

Integrity of the AID serine-38 phosphorylation site is critical for class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation in mice.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Cheng HL, Vuong BQ, Basu U, Franklin A, Schwer B, Astarita J, Phan RT, Datta A, Manis J, Alt FW, Chaudhuri J

Conserved metabolic regulatory functions of sirtuins.

Cell metabolism

Schwer B, Verdin E

SIRT6 in DNA repair, metabolism and ageing.

Journal of internal medicine

Lombard DB, Schwer B, Alt FW, Mostoslavsky R

Mammalian Sir2 homolog SIRT3 regulates global mitochondrial lysine acetylation.

Molecular and cellular biology

Lombard DB, Alt FW, Cheng HL, Bunkenborg J, Streeper RS, Mostoslavsky R, Kim J, Yancopoulos G, Valenzuela D, Murphy A, Yang Y, Chen Y, Hirschey MD, Bronson RT, Haigis M, Guarente LP, Farese RV, Weissman S, Verdin E, Schwer B

Regulation of insulin secretion by SIRT4, a mitochondrial ADP-ribosyltransferase.

The Journal of biological chemistry

Ahuja N, Schwer B, Carobbio S, Waltregny D, North BJ, Castronovo V, Maechler P, Verdin E

Reversible lysine acetylation controls the activity of the mitochondrial enzyme acetyl-CoA synthetase 2.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Schwer B, Bunkenborg J, Verdin RO, Andersen JS, Verdin E

The Class III Protein Deacetylases.

Histone Deacetylases

Bjoern Schwer, Brian J. North, Nidhi Ahuja, Brett Marshall, Eric Verdin

Preparation of enzymatically active recombinant class III protein deacetylases.

Methods (San Diego, Calif.)

North BJ, Schwer B, Ahuja N, Marshall B, Verdin E

Targeting of hepatitis C virus core protein to mitochondria through a novel C-terminal localization motif.

Journal of virology

Schwer B, Ren S, Pietschmann T, Kartenbeck J, Kaehlcke K, Bartenschlager R, Yen TS, Ott M

Release and intercellular transfer of cell surface CD81 via microparticles.

Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950)

Fritzsching B, Schwer B, Kartenbeck J, Pedal A, Horejsi V, Ott M

RNA helicase dynamics in pre-mRNA splicing.

The EMBO journal

Schwer B, Meszaros T

Trans-complementation of the second step of pre-mRNA splicing by exogenous 5' exons.

RNA (New York, N.Y.)

Chanfreau G, Gouyette C, Schwer B, Jacquier A

Accelerated mRNA decay in conditional mutants of yeast mRNA capping enzyme.

Nucleic acids research

Schwer B, Mao X, Shuman S