Wayne P Wahls, PhD

Research Program: Cancer Biology Faculty Rank: Professor Campus: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College: College of Medicine Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Cancer Research Interest

• Disease Site Focus: No Specific Disease Site
• Research Focus Area: Carcinogenesis
• Type of Research: Basic
• Research Keywords: Genome dynamics, Homologous recombination, DNA damage response
• Research Interest Statement: Research in my laboratory encompasses chromosome dynamics, epigenetics, stress responsive signaling pathways, and homologous recombination. We use a powerful model organism, the fission yeast S. pombe, to define molecular mechanisms of fundamental biological processes used by all eukaryotes, including humans. Our work has provided important insight into genome dynamics and instability, cellular growth controls, and the formation and repair of double-strand DNA breaks, each of which is germane to the causes and consequences of cancer. I have a secondary interest in science funding policy, focused on the sources, impacts and remediation of vast disparities in NIH funding among institutions and states. I have been funded consistently through my career by agencies such as the Damon Runyan Cancer Research Foundation, the Leukemia Society of America, the NIH, and the Human Frontier Science Program. I currently have an active NIH R01 grant (GM145834) for the systematic elucidation of DNA sequence codes that regulate homologous recombination.

Contact Information

• Email Address: WAHLSWAYNEP@UAMS.EDU
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Active Grants

• NIH/Nat. Inst. of General Medical Sciences – 1R01GM145834
  “Systematic elucidation of DNA sequence codes that regulate meiotic recombination”
  Principal Investigator
  5/10/2022 – 3/31/2026

Recent Publications

• Protacio RU, Wahls WP. Targeted Forward Genetics: Saturating Mutational Analyses of Specific Target Loci Within the Genome. Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.). 2025 2862:223-239. PMID: 39527204.
• Protacio RU, Davidson MK, Malone EG, [et al., including Wahls WP]. Agar lot-specific inhibition in the plating efficiency of yeast spores and cells. G3 (Bethesda, Md.). 2024. PMID: 39312221.
• Protacio RU, Dixon S, Davidson MK, Wahls WP. Creating Meiotic Recombination-Regulating DNA Sites by SpEDIT in Fission Yeast Reveals Inefficiencies, Target-Site Duplications, and Ectopic Insertions. Biomolecules. 2024 14(8). PMID: 39199403. PMCID: PMC11352267.
• Hong Z, Byrd AK, Gao J, [et al., including Wahls WP]. Eukaryotic Pif1 helicase unwinds G-quadruplex and dsDNA using a conserved wedge. Nature communications. 2024 15(1):6104. PMID: 39030241. PMCID: PMC11275212.
• Gao J, Proffitt DR, Marecki JC, [et al., including Wahls WP]. Two residues in the DNA binding site of Pif1 helicase are essential for nuclear functions but dispensable for mitochondrial respiratory growth. Nucleic acids research. 2024. PMID: 38752483. PMCID: PMC11194084.
• Protacio RU, Malone EG, Wahls WP. DNA sequences and distinct mechanisms for ura4-595 and ura4-294 alleles of S. pombe. microPublication biology. 2024 2024. PMID: 38440330. PMCID: PMC10910285.
• Protacio RU, Malone EG, Wahls WP. Distance-dependent effects on CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing in Schizosaccharomyces pombe compromise efficiency and create unsought alleles. microPublication biology. 2024 2024. PMID: 39132053. PMCID: PMC11310776.
• Protacio RU, Mukiza TO, Davidson MK, Wahls WP. Molecular mechanisms for environmentally induced and evolutionarily rapid redistribution (plasticity) of meiotic recombination. Genetics. 2022 220(2). PMID: 34888655. PMCID: PMC9097252.
• Protacio RU, Davidson MK, Wahls WP. Adaptive Control of the Meiotic Recombination Landscape by DNA Site-dependent Hotspots With Implications for Evolution. Frontiers in genetics. 2022 13:947572. PMID: 35812747. PMCID: PMC9257126.
• Storey AJ, Hardman RE, Byrum SD, [et al., including Wahls WP]. Accurate and Sensitive Quantitation of the Dynamic Heat Shock Proteome Using Tandem Mass Tags. Journal of proteome research. 2020 19(3):1183-1195. PMID: 32027144. PMCID: PMC7241437.