RESEARCH
Transcriptional regulation
IN DEvelopment
The regulation of transcription plays a crucial role in animal development. It is orchestrated by enhancers, non-coding DNA elements that are bound by multiple transcription factors in a sequence-specific manner. A typical enhancer activates the expression of its target gene, often over long genomic distances, which in turn specifies the fate of different cell types during development. We are using mouse embryo development as a model system and a combination of novel genome editing (Kvon et al., 2016) and genomics tools to understand how enhancers work in the 3D genome in the context of mammalian development.
Transcriptional regulation
IN congenital disorders
Many non-coding variants associated with congenital disorders are hypothesized to affect developmental enhancers. Determining which of these potentially pathogenic enhancer variants are important and understanding the etiology of the enhancer malfunction is a major challenge. We are using novel CRISPR/Cas9-based mouse transgenesis (Kvon et al., 2020) and cutting-edge genomics tools to understand molecular mechanisms by which pathogenic non-coding variants lead to congenital disorders.
Transcriptional regulation
IN vertebrate evolution
Changes in gene regulatory networks are hypothesized to be a primary driver of changes in body shape between different animals, but identifying genomic loci associated with major morphological transitions in vertebrates has remained challenging. The mouse is a powerful model for studying evolution loci because regulatory DNA sequences from different vertebrate species can be introduced into the mouse genome, and their activities can be directly compared with each other (Kvon et al., 2016). We are interested in using mice to further develop novel genome manipulation tools to better understand the molecular basis of vertebrate evolution.