About the Project
Interested individuals must follow Steps 1, 2 and 3 at this link on how to apply
http://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/prospective-students/postgraduate/pgr/how-to-apply
The centromere is a unique chromatin domain important for proper segregation of chromosomes during mitosis. In most organisms, the position of the centromere is determined epigenetically by the centromere-specific incorporation of the H3-variant CENP-A Transcription at centromeres has been linked to the deposition of new CENP-A, although it is unclear whether transcription or the produced RNA are equally important. We and others have recently found that several components of the transcriptional machinery including RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) and centromere-associated RNA transcripts temporally coincides with CENP-A loading in mitosis to G1. While we have evidence cells that the transcriptional process itself is required for CENP-A deposition at the centromere, this does not rule out a role for the centromeric transcripts themselves. The goal of this project is to purify and analyse nascent centromeric transcripts from Drosophila tissue culture cells as our model system. We will then aim to dissect the roles of transcription and RNA transcripts, by specifically targeting an RNase to centromeric loci and investigate centromere inheritance and function.
http://www.wcb.ed.ac.uk/research/patrick-heun
References
Logsdon, G.A., Barrey, E.J., Bassett, E.A., DeNizio, J.E., Guo, L.Y., Panchenko, T., Dawicki-McKenna, J.M., Heun, P., and Black, B.E. (2015). Both tails and the centromere targeting domain of CENP-A are required for centromere establishment. J Cell Biol 208, 521-531.
Mendiburo MJ, Padeken J, Fulop S, Schepers A, Heun P: Drosophila CENH3 is sufficient for centromere formation. Science 2011, 334:686-690.
Olszak AM, van Essen D, Pereira AJ, Diehl S, Manke T, Maiato H, Saccani S, Heun P: Heterochromatin boundaries are hotspots for de novo kinetochore formation. Nature cell biology 2011, 13:799-808.
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