Professor of Oncology
B.S., 1964, Chemistry, California Institute of Technology
Ph.D., 1969, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Harvard University
Postdoctoral research: Laboratory of Alfred Tissieres,
University of Geneva
Office: 411 McArdle Laboratory
Telephone: Office - (608) 263-2635; Lab - (608) 263-3375
Email: burgess@oncology.wisc.edu
Lab Home Page
Research Interests: RNA polymerase and the regulation of transcription
Research Description: Work in my laboratory is focused on prokaryotic and eukaryotic RNA polymerases and transcription machinery and their role in regulation of RNA synthesis. In particular, we study the structure and function of the initiation factor, E. coli RNA polymerase sigma-70 subunit, by a concerted use of protein and physical chemistry, monoclonal antibodies, molecular genetics, and biochemistry. We will use monoclonal antibodies to the seven different E. coli sigmas to measure changes in the total amounts and binding to core polymerase as a function of cell growth conditions. We are using special monoclonal antibodies to immunopurify RNA polymerase II from wheat, yeast, and human cells in order to study the subunit architecture of the enzyme and the interaction of the enzyme with DNA and transcription factors. Protein expression and purification methods are being developed.
Filutowicz, M., Burgess, R., Gamelli, R. L., Heinemann, J. A., Kurenbach, B., Rakowski, S. A., and Shankar, R. Bacterial Conjugation-based Antimicrobial Agents. Plasmid, 60: 38-44, 2008.
Glaser, B. T., Bergendahl, V., Thompson, N. E., Olson, B., and Burgess, R. R. LRET-Based HTS of a Small-Compound Library for Inhibitors of Bacterial RNA Polymerase. Assay Drug Dev. Technol., 5: 759-768, 2007.
Moorthy, J., Burgess, R., Yethiraj, A., and Beebe, D. Microfluidic Based Platform for Characterization of Protein Interactions in Hydrogel Nanoenvironments. Anal. Chem., 79: 5322-5327, 2007.
Probasco, M. D., Thompson, N. E., and Burgess, R. R. Immunoaffinity Purification and Characterization of RNA Polymerase from Shewanella oneidensis. Protein Expr. Purif., 55: 23-30, 2007.
Zhao, K., Liu, M., and Burgess, R. R. Adaptation in Bacterial Flagellar and Motility Systems: From Regulon Members to ‘Foraging’-like Behavior in E. coli. Nucleic Acids Res., 35: 4441-4452, 2007.
Duellman, S. J., and Burgess, R. R. Overproduction in Escherichia coli and Purification of Epstein-Barr Virus EBNA-1. Protein Expr. Purif., 47: 434-440, 2006.
Lamberski, J. A., Thompson, N. E., and Burgess, R. R. Expression and Purification of a Single-chain Variable Fragment Antibody Derived from a Polyol-responsive Monoclonal Antibody. Protein Expr. Purif., 47: 82-92, 2006.
Sabree, Z. L., Bergendahl, V., Liles, M. R., Burgess, R. R., Goodman, R. M., and Handelsman, J. Identification and Characterization of the Gene Encoding the Acidobacterium capsulatum Major Sigma Factor. Gene, 376: 144-151, 2006.
Thompson, N. E., Jensen, D. B., Lamberski, J. A., and Burgess, R. R. Purification of Protein Complexes by Immunoaffinity Chromatography: Application to Transcription Machinery. Genet. Eng. , 27: 81-100, 2006.
Kozlov, M., Bergendahl, V., Burgess, R., Goldfarb, A., and Mustaev, A. Homogeneous Fluorescent Assay for RNA Polymerase. Anal. Biochem., 342: 206-213, 2005.
Liu, M., Durfee, T., Cabrera, J. E., Zhao, K., Jin, D. J., and Blattner, F. R. Global Transcriptional Programs Reveal a Carbon Source Foraging Strategy by Escherichia coli. J. Biol. Chem., 280: 15921-15927, 2005.
Raffaelle, M., Kanin, E. I., Vogt, J., Burgess, R. R., and Ansari, A. Z. Holoenzyme Switching and Stochastic Release of Sigma Factors from RNA Polymerase In Vivo. Mol. Cell, 20: 357-366, 2005.
Zhao, K., Liu, M., and Burgess, R. R. The Global Transcriptional Response of Escherichia coli to Induced s32 Protein Involves s32 Regulon Activation Followed by Inactivation and Degradation of s32 in Vivo. J. Biol. Chem., 280: 17758-17768, 2005.
Duellman, S. J., Thompson, N. E., and Burgess, R. R. An Epitope Tag Derived from Human Transcription Factor IIB That Reacts with a Polyol-responsive Monoclonal Antibody. Protein Expr. Purif., 35: 147-155, 2004.
Phan, D., Cheng, C.-J., Galfione, M., Vakar-Lopez, F., Tunstead, J., Thompson, N. E., Burgess, R. R., Najjar, S. M., Yu-Lee, L.-Y., and Lin, S.-H. Identification of Sp2 as a Transcriptional Repressor of Carcinoembryonic Antigen-Related Cell Adhesion Molecule 1 in Tumorigenesis. Cancer Res., 64: 3072-3078, 2004.
Thompson, N. E., Foley, K. M., and Burgess, R. R. Antigen-binding Properties of Monoclonal Antibodies Reactive with Human TATA-binding Protein and Use in Immunoaffinity Chromatography. Protein Expr. Purif., 36: 186-197, 2004.
Anthony, L. C., Foley, K. M., Thompson, N. E., and Burgess, R. R. Expression, Purification of, and Monoclonal Antibodies to s Factors from Escherichia coli. Methods Enzymol., 370: 181-192, 2003.
Bergendahl, V., and Burgess, R. R. Studying Sigma-Core Interactions in Escherichia coli RNA Polymerase by Electrophoretic Shift Assays and Luminescence Resonance Energy Transfer. Methods Enzymol., 370: 192-205, 2003.
Bergendahl, V., Glaser, B. T., and Burgess, R. R. A Fast Western Blot Procedure Improved for Quantitative Analysis by Direct Fluorescence Labeling of Primary Antibodies. J. Immunol. Methods, 277: 117-125, 2003.
Bergendahl, V., Heyduk, T., and Burgess, R. R. Luminescence Resonance Energy Transfer-Based High-Throughput Screening Assay for Inhibitors of Essential Protein-Protein Interactions in Bacterial RNA Polymerase. Appl. Environ. Microbiol., 69: 1492-1498, 2003.
Bergendahl, V., Thompson, N. E., Foley, K. M., Olson, B. M., and Burgess, R. R. A Cross-Reactive Polyol-Responsive Monoclonal Antibody Useful for Isolation of Core RNA Polymerase from Many Bacterial Species. Protein Expr. Purif., 31: 155-160, 2003.
Thompson, N. E., Arthur, T. M., and Burgess, R. R. Development of an Epitope Tag for the Gentle Purification of Proteins by Immunoaffinity Chromatography: Application to Epitope-Tagged Green Fluorescent Protein. Anal. Biochem., 323: 171-179, 2003.
Anthony, L. C., and Burgess, R. R. Conformational Flexibility in s70 Region 2 during Transcription Initiation. J. Biol. Chem., 277: 46433-46441, 2002.
Anthony, L. C., Dombkowski, A. A., and Burgess, R. R. Using Disulfide Bond Engineering To Study Conformational Changes in the b'260-309 Coiled-Coil Region of Escherichia coli RNA Polymerase during s70 Binding. J. Bacteriol., 184: 2634-2641, 2002.
Bergendahl, V., Anthony, L. C., Heyduk, T., and Burgess, R. R. On-column Tris(2-Carboxyethyl)Phosphine Reduction and IC5-Maleimide Labeling during Purification of a RpoC Fragment on a Nickel-Nitrilotriacetic Acid Column. Anal. Biochem., 307: 368-374, 2002.
Burgess, R. R., and Thompson, N. E. Advances in Gentle Immunoaffinity
Chromatography. Curr. Opin. Biotechnol., 13: 304-308, 2002.
Burgess, R. R. Sigma Factors. In: S. Brenner and J. H. Miller (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Genetics, pp. 1831-1834. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2001.
Burgess, R. R., and Anthony, L. How Sigma Docks to RNA Polymerase and What Sigma Does. Curr. Opin. Microbiol., 4: 126-131, 2001.
Gaal, T., Ross, W., Estrem, S. T., Nguyen, L. H., Burgess, R. R., and Gourse, R. L. Promoter Recognition and Discrimination by EsS RNA Polymerase. Mol. Microbiol., 42: 939-954, 2001.
Grabski, A. C., and Burgess, R. R. Preparation of Protein Samples for SDS-Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis: Procedures and Tips. InNovations, 13: 10-12, 2001.
Gruber, T. M., Markov, D., Sharp, M. M., Young, B. A., Lu, C. Z., Zhong, H. J., Artsimovitch, I., Geszvain, K. M., Arthur, T. M., Burgess, R. R., Landick, R., Severinov, K., and Gross, C. A. Binding of the Initiation Factor s70 to Core RNA Polymerase Is a Multistep Process. Mol. Cell, 8: 21-31, 2001.
Thompson, N. E., and Burgess, R. R. Preparation and Use
of Specialized Antibodies. Identification of Polyol-Responsive Monoclonal
Antibodies for Use in Immunoaffinity Chromatography. Current Protocols in
Molecular Biology, Section VI, Suppl. 54: 11.18.1-11.18.9, 2001.
Young, B. A., Anthony, L. C., Gruber, T. M., Arthur, T. M., Heyduk, E., Lu, C. Z., Sharp, M. M., Heyduk, T., Burgess, R. R., and Gross, C. A. A Coiled-Coil from the RNA Polymerase b' Subunit Allosterically Induces Selective Nontemplate Strand Binding by s70. Cell, 105: 935-944, 2001.
Anthony, L. C., Artsimovich, I., Svetlov, V., Landick, R., and Burgess, R. R. Rapid Purification of His6-Tagged Bacillus subtilis Core RNA Polymerase. Protein Expr. Purif., 19: 350-354, 2000.
Arthur, T. M., Anthony, L. C., and Burgess, R. R. Mutational Analysis of b'260-309, a s70 Binding Site Located on Escherichia coli Core RNA Polymerase. J. Biol. Chem., 275: 23113-23119, 2000.
Artsimovich, I., Svetlov, V., Anthony, L., Burgess, R. R., and Landick, R. RNA Polymerases from Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli Differ in Recognition of Regulatory Signals In Vitro. J. Bacteriol., 182: 6027-6035, 2000.
Burgess, R. R., Arthur, T. M., and Pietz, B. C. Mapping Protein-Protein Interaction Domains Using Ordered Fragment Ladder Far-Western Analysis of Hexahistidine-Tagged Fusion Proteins. Methods Enzymol., 328: 141-157, 2000.
Cramer, P., Bushnell, D. A., Fu, J., Gnatt, A. L., Maier-Davis, B., Thompson, N. E., Burgess, R. R., Edwards, A. M., David, P. R., and Kornberg, R. D. Architecture of RNA Polymerase II and Implications for the Transcription Mechanism. Science, 288: 640-649, 2000.
Wooddell, C. I., and Burgess, R. R. Topology of Yeast RNA
Polymerase II Subunits in Transcription Elongation Complexes Studied by Photoaffinity
Cross-Linking. Biochemistry, 39: 13405-13421, 2000.
Fu, J., Gnatt, A. L., Bushnell, D. A., Jensen, G. J., Thompson, N. E., Burgess, R. R., David, P. R., and Kornberg, R. D. Yeast RNA Polymerase II at 5 Angstrom Resolution. Cell, 98: 799-810, 1999.
McMahan, S. A., and Burgess, R. R. Mapping Protease Susceptibility Sites on the Escherichia coli Transcription Factor s70. Biochemistry, 38: 12424-12431, 1999.
Thompson, N. E., and Burgess, R. R. Immunoaffinity Purification of the RAP30 Subunit of Human Transcription Factor IIF. Protein Expr. Purif., 17: 260-266, 1999.
Arthur, T. M., and Burgess, R. R. Localization of a s70 Binding Site on the N Terminus of the Escherichia coli RNA b' Subunit. J. Biol. Chem., 273: 31381-31387, 1998.
Burgess, R. R., Arthur, T. M., and Pietz, B. C. Interaction of Escherichia coli s70 with Core RNA Polymerase. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol., LXIII: 277-287, 1998.
Grabski, A. C., Grimek, H. J., and Burgess, R. R. Immobilization of Manganese Peroxidase from Lentinula edodes and Its Biocatalytic Generation of MNIII-Chelate as a Chemical Oxidant of Chlorophenols. Biotechnol. Bioeng., 60: 204-215, 1998.
Mosig, G., Colowick, N. E., and Pietz, B. Several New Bacteriophage T4 Genes Mapped by Sequencing Deletion Endpoints between Genes 56 (dCTPase) and dda (DNA-dependent ATPase-helicase) Modulate Transcription. Gene, 223: 143-155, 1998.
Rockabrand, D., Livers, K., Austin, T., Kaiser, R., Jensen, D., Burgess, R., and Blum, P. Roles of DnaK and RpoS in Starvation-Induced Thermotolerance of Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol., 180: 846-854, 1998.
Svetlov, V., Nolan, K., and Burgess, R. R. Rpb3: Stoichiometry and Sequence Determinants of the Assembly into Yeast RNA Polymerase II in Vivo. J. Biol. Chem., 273: 10827-10830, 1998.
Nguyen, L. H., and Burgess, R. R. Comparative Analysis of the Interactions of Escherichia Coli sS and s70 RNA Polymerase Holoenzyme with the Stationary-Phase-Specific bolAp1 Promoter. Biochemistry, 36: 1748-1754, 1997.
Nguyen, L. H., and Burgess, R. R. Overproduction and Purification of sS, the Escherichia coli Stationary Phase Specific Sigma Transcription Factor. Protein Expr. Purif., 8: 17-22, 1996.
Thompson, N. E., Strasheim, L. A., Nolan, K. M., and Burgess, R. R. Accessibility of Epitopes on Human Transcription Factor IIB in the Native Protein and in a Complex with DNA. J. Biol. Chem., 270: 4735-3740, 1995.
