Department of Microbiology

Ren Ee Chee


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Ren Ee Chee BSc (Hons), PhD

Associate Professor

Tel: +65 6516 3318
Email: micrenec@nus.edu.sg

Hepatitis B virus and Bone Marrow Registry
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection occurs in many parts of the world and infected individuals who cannot clear the virus remain as chronic carriers. They have a 200 times increase in risk for developing liver cancer. Although some anti-virals such as interferon alpha have been used to treat chronic carriers, the results are not consistent and do not provide a long-term cure.

The main impediment to effective therapy lies in the lack of knowledge of exactly how the virus replicates. To resolve this problem, the group has set out to identify DNA binding proteins that specifically interact with HBV. Using HBV enhancer II fragments as probes, 2 liver proteins that bind directly to it have been identified. The first, named E2BO is a member of the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) family. The second, named HBEN has no known homologs.

These proteins are being characterised and may provide the raw material for the generation of new antivirals or drugs and also new cell-free systems for the testing of new drugs against HBV. Conventional marrow registries use serology methods to type its new marrow donors. However, the error rate for this method is in the order of 20% to 30%. In addition, there are new HLA alleles that have no serological equivalents. The group has developed large scale typing protocols for HLA-A and HLA-DR resulting in highly accurate HLA typing (>99%) for our marrow donors. A Cord Blood Registry has also been set-up and by the year 2000, all HLA tests will be converted to DNA-based ones.

Mechanism of hepatitis B virus replication
This area of research focuses on identifying the host factors that support HBV replication. We have previously identifi ed host specifi c factors that are required to drive HBV replication. By using a series of proteomics and genomics tools, we hope to identify the relevant host factors that will then be targeted to block HBV replication.

Molecular modeling of MHC-peptide binding
We have developed a series of applications that will allow the accurate prediction of whether a peptide will bind into the HLA antigen binding groove. This will be greatly beneficial to selecting target peptides that can be used for immunization or therapeutic applications. The process involves a prediction algorithm to first select possible binding peptides. These are then passed through a high throughput in-vitro validation binding assay. The binding peptides are further examined using functional assays to confirm their usefulness.

Feng P, Wang B and Ren EC (2008) Cyr61/CCN1 is a tumor suppressor in human hepatocellular carcinoma and involved in DNA damage response. Intl. J. Biochem. Cell. Biol. 40:98-109

Pan H, Niu DD, Feng HX, Ng LFP, Ren EC and Chen WN (2007) Cellular transcription modulator SMARCE1 binds to HBV core promoter containing naturally occurring deletions and represses viral replication. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - Mol. Basis of Dis. 1772:1075-1084

Lim S, Chan SH and Ren EC (2006) Identification of a new HLA-A*2464 variant in the Singapore Chinese population. Tissue Antigens 68:265-267

Pang SW, Chan SH and Ren EC (2006) Identification of two novel HLA-C alleles, HLA-Cw*1217 and HLA-Cw*030404, in Singapore Chinese. Tissue Antigens. 67:177

Yu HX, Chia JM, Bourque G, Wong MV, Chan SH and Ren EC (2005) A population based LD map of the human chromosome 6p. Immunogenetics. 57:559-565

Ng LF, Chan M, Chan SH, Cheng PC, Leung EH, Chen WN and Ren EC (2005) Host heterogeneous ribonucleoprotein K (hnRNP K) as a potential target to suppress hepatitis B virus replication. PLoS Med. 2(7):e163

Yu HX, Srinivasan N, Ren EC and Chan SH (2005) A11 Tetramer-assisted characterization of Rta-specific CD8+ T-cell responses in healthy virus carriers. Tissue Antigens. 65:539-543

Neo SY, Leow CY, Vinsensius B. Vega, Long PM, Amirul Islam, Lai PBS, Liu E and Ren EC (2004) Identification of discriminators of hepatocellular carcinoma vs. non-tumor liver using expression profiling. Hepatology. 39:944-953

Feng P, Ren EC, Liu DX, S H Chan and Hu H (2001) Specific expression of Epstein-Barr virus lytic gene BRLF1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma: potential usage for diagnosis and immunotherapy. J. of Gen. Virol. 81:2417-2423

Ren EC, P Kangueane, P R Kolatkar, MT Lin, LH Tseng and JA Hansen (2000) Molecular modeling of the minor histocompatibility antigen HA-1 peptides binding to HLA-A alleles and its relevance in stem cell transplant matching. Tissue Antigens. 55:24-30

Current Projects:
	Hepatitis B Virus – Host Interactions
	ArrayCGH and expression profiling of HBV positive liver cancer
	Functional studies of hnRNPK
	MHC-peptide binding
	MHC crystallization

Lab Members:
	Neo Soek Ying +65 6407 0048 neo_soek_ying@immunol.a-star.edu.sg
	Wang Bei +65 6407 0050 g0305847@nus.edu.sg
	Chia Jer Ming +65 6516 3319 jmchia@nus.edu.sg
	Stanley Ng +65 6407 0015 stanleyng@nus.edu.sg
	Toh Xinyu +65 6407 0015 ton_xin_yu@immunol.a-star.edu.sg
	Adeline Lau +65 6407 0015 adeline_lau@immunol.a-star.edu.sg
	Peh Su Qin +65 6407 0015 peh_su_qin@immunol.a-star.edu.sg
	Koh Hui Ling g0701854@nus.edu.sg
	Zhi Ying g0700033@nus.edu.sg
	Xiao Ziwei u0402613@nus.edu.sg