Upcoming Webinar:
Dr. Giacomo Cavalli
Principal Investigator of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
The Role of Polycomb Proteins and 3D Genome Architecture in Epigenetics Inheritance and Cancer
August 08, 2024
9:00 am PDT/12:00 pm EDT
Epigenetic components regulate many biological phenomena during development and normal physiology. When dysregulated, epigenetic components can also accompany or drive diseases. One main class of epigenetic components are Polycomb group proteins. Originally, Polycomb proteins were shown to silence gene expression. We found that this function involves the regulation of 3D chromosome folding and we found that Polycomb components can induce the formation of long-distance interactions or chromatin loops. The analysis of one of these loops shows that loops may play instructive roles in gene regulation as well as serve as scaffolding elements that contribute to enhancer-promoter specificity. Perturbation of Polycomb components leads to tumorigenesis in flies. Surprisingly, even upon a transient depletion followed by restoration of the full Polycomb compendium, epithelial cells lose their normal differentiated fate, continue proliferating and establish aggressive tumors, demonstrating that cancer can have a fully epigenetic origin.
Past Webinars:
MAY 2024: Genevieve Fourel (INSERM, Lyon, Fr)
'ProA and ProB Repeat
Sequences Shape Genome
Organization in Eukaryotes, and Enhancers Open Chromatin Domains'
MARCH 2024: Rong Fan (Yale University)
'Spatial Epigenome Sequencing for Mapping Tissue Function, Aging and Diseases'
February 2024: Samir Ounzain (HAYA TX)
'Unlocking the Regulatory Genome: Pioneering RNA-Guided Therapeutics for Cell-State Modulation in Disease Pathogenesis'
January 2024: Cigall Kadoch (Harvard Univ.) - No recording available
'Structure and Function of Mammalian SWI/SNF Chromatin Remodeling Complexes in Human Disease'
NOVember 2023: Sir Shankar BalasubramaniAn (Univ. of Cambridge)
'DNA - What is it Telling Us?'
September 2023: Terry Connolly & Or Gozani (K36 Tx)
'Biology of NSD2 and Clinical Opportunities for KTX-1001,the First NSD2 Inhibitor to Enter the Clinic'
May 2023: John Rinn (Univ. Colorado)
'The Role of lncRNA in transcriptional regulation'
NOVEMBER 2022:
ALAN HUANG (Tango tx)
'Discovery of MTA-Cooperative PRMT5 Inhibitors for the Treatment of MTAP-Deleted Cancer'
AUGUST 2022
EMILY BERNSTEIN (Mount Sinai)
'Chromatin Remodeling in Cancer'
APRIL 2022
JOHN WHETSTINE (Fox Chase) - No Recording Available
'Epigenetics: A Gatekeeper to DNA Replication, Extrachromosomal DNA Amplification and Drug Response'
March 2022: Ronen Sadeh (Senseera)
'Cell-free chromatin sequencing as a new modality in liquid biopsy'
January 2022: Robert Copeland (Accent TX)
'Chromatin and RNA Modifying Enzyme Targets for Precision Cancer Therapeutics'