Long-lasting memories are stored in a small set of neurons scattered throughout the brain, so-called engram cells. To define a stable engram each region of the brain involved in memory storage recruits between 5 and 20 percent of excitatory neurons. In par ...
Mammalian genomes are a battleground for genetic conflict between repetitive elements and KRAB-zinc finger proteins (KZFPs). We asked whether KZFPs can regulate cell fate by using ZFP819, which targets a satellite DNA array, ZP3AR. ZP3AR coats megabase reg ...
Single-molecule measurements provide detailed mechanistic insights into molecular processes, for example in genome regulation where DNA access is controlled by nucleosomes and the chromatin machinery. However, real-time single-molecule observations of nucl ...
In cancer cells, enhancer hijacking mediated by chromosomal alterations and/or increased deposition of acetylated histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27ac) can support oncogene expression. However, how the chromatin conformation of enhancer-promoter interactions is a ...
Pioneer transcription factors (PTF) are a subset of transcription factors with nucleosome-binding properties allowing them to bind specific sequences in condensed chromatin. Although the biological functions of PTFs including target genes and epigenetic ch ...
Notch1 receptor signaling is essential for T cell fate specification and physiological thymic T lymphocyte development. Its dysregulation and oncogenic activation are detected in almost 80% of pediatric patients suffering from T cell acute lymphoblastic le ...
Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of proteins and RNAs has emerged as the driving force underlying the formation of membrane-less organelles. Such biomolecular condensates have various biological functions and have been linked to disease. The protein F ...
Estrogen hormones are implicated in a majority of breast cancers and estrogen receptor alpha (ER), the main nuclear factor mediating estrogen signaling, orchestrates a complex molecular circuitry that is not yet fully elucidated. Here, we investigated geno ...
Biogenesis of eukaryotic box C/D small nucleolar ribonucleoproteins initiates co-transcriptionally and requires the action of the assembly machinery including the Hsp90/R2TP complex, the Rsa1p:Hit1p heterodimer and the Bcd1 protein. We present genetic inte ...
Binding of mammalian transcription factors (TFs) to regulatory regions is hindered by chromatin compaction and DNA methylation of their binding sites. Nevertheless, pioneer transcription factors (PFs), a distinct class of TFs, have the ability to access nu ...
Epigenetics research focuses on the study of heritable gene regulatory mechanisms that do not involve changes of the DNA sequence. Such mechanisms include post-translational modifications of histone proteins that organize the genome in the nucleus into a n ...
