Innovating Works

Silencer

Financiado
The dark side of the genome systematically studying the biology of repressive e...
The dark side of the genome systematically studying the biology of repressive elements silencers in the human genome Less than 1.5% of the human genome contains protein coding information of the estimated 25,000 genes. The rest of the non-coding genome includes many regulatory elements that control the spatial and temporal transcription of genes... Less than 1.5% of the human genome contains protein coding information of the estimated 25,000 genes. The rest of the non-coding genome includes many regulatory elements that control the spatial and temporal transcription of genes. With the help of the non-coding regulatory elements, the diverse cell types and tissues of a complex human body could be derived from the combinational expression of a limited number of genes from the same copy of the genome. Most regulatory elements (REs) have been characterized extensively, e.g. promoters, enhancers and insulators. These REs have been implicated to play very important roles in cell physiology, tissue development and disease onsets. Surprisingly, one class of REs—silencers—which repress the transcription of genes, have not been systematically characterized and studied. I have developed a lentiviral system to systematically identify functional silencer elements. In the small-scale proof-of-principle experiments, by focusing on the transcriptional factor (TF) accessible DNA sequences, I showed that this system is robust to identify novel and bona fide silencers, which could be validated using complementary functional assays such as luciferase and CRISPR knockout assays. In this proposed research plan, I aim to identify silencers in an unbiased way, rather than focusing on TF accessible regions, to have a more general understanding of the biology of silencers. Based on the unbiased identification of silencers, I aim to identify a general pattern of epigenetic modifications of silencers, unique combination of sequence motifs, responsible regulatory TFs, biological pathways that are regulated by silencers, diseases that might be related to mutations in silencers, and finally better manipulation strategies of silencers. ver más
31/01/2026
2M€
Duración del proyecto: 62 meses Fecha Inicio: 2020-11-04
Fecha Fin: 2026-01-31

Línea de financiación: concedida

El organismo H2020 notifico la concesión del proyecto el día 2020-11-04
Línea de financiación objetivo El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
ERC-2020-STG: ERC STARTING GRANTS
Cerrada hace 5 años
Presupuesto El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a 2M€
Líder del proyecto
ACADEMISCH ZIEKENHUIS LEIDEN No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico TRL 4-5