Redox Pioneer: Professor Sue Goo Rhee

Dr. Sue Goo Rhee is recognized as a Redox Pioneer because he has published five articles in the field of antioxidants and redox signaling that have been cited >1000 times and 69 of his articles in this field have been cited between 100 and 1000 times. Dr. Rhee is known for his discovery of the first three prototypical members of the phospholipase C family, and for the discovery of the ubiquitously expressed peroxiredoxins. Peroxiredoxin catalyzes the thiol-mediated reduction of H2O2. These enzymes protect cellular molecules from oxidative damage. Importantly, they also regulate cell signaling by modulating the intracellular levels of H(2)O(2)that are induced by signaling agonists. He elucidated the mechanism by which the peroxiredoxins participate in signaling by H2O2: Dr. Rhee demonstrated that growth agonists such as epidermal growth factor induce a transient elevation of intracellular H(2)O(2)that oxidize the catalytically essential cysteine residue of protein tyrosine phosphatases. The oxidation inactivates the phosphatases, allowing enhanced protein tyrosine phosphorylation to mediate cell signaling. In addition, he established that peroxiredoxins are exquisitely regulated through phosphorylation, glutathionylation, and hyperoxidation of their active site cysteine to cysteine sulfinic acid. Dr. Rhee showed that cysteine oxidation to its sulfinic acid derivative is not irreversible as previously thought. The reduction of hyperoxidized peroxiredoxin is catalyzed by sulfiredoxin. His further investigations implicated cyclic hyperoxidation and reduction of peroxiredoxin in the regulation of certain circadian rhythms.