Cellular and Molecular Biology

Introduction   

Recent experimental evidences demonstrate the importance of non-coding RNAs in the regulation of gene expression, cell fate, and diseases.  Our model is that non-coding RNAs regulate epigenetic modifications to allow embryonic stem cells to differentiate in the distinct cell types of the organism.

Aim of the project  

Goal of this project is to identify the functional interaction between new regulatory non-coding RNAs and key epigenetic modifiers that control gene expression.  

Methods  

We have developed differentiation protocols to induce embryonic stem cells into neuronal or mesoderm precursors. We identify key regulatory networks by generating mutants using the CRSPR/Cas9 technology and analyse the resulting gene expression by transcriptomic and genomic analyses ( such as scRNA-seq, ChIP-seq, WGBS, ATAC-seq) and analyse the data by bioinformatic tools.  

Work plan  

We identify long non-coding RNAs involved in the control of neural and mesodermal differentiation. We focus on non-coding RNAs that interact with epigenetic modifiers. RNA-seq analysis at various stages of neural or mesodermal differentiation will be performed to identify non-coding RNA selectively expressed in developmental specific differentiation stages. Selection of non-coding RNAs will be isolated by interaction with key epigenetic regulator. The functional role of the regulators will be obtained by gain of function loss of function experiments.