News & Events / BME Seminar Series / Past Seminar Speakers / 2018-19Chuan He, PhD
BME Seminar Series Spring 2019
Thursday, March 25, 2019 at 4-5 pm
Tech L361
Host: Professor Vadim Backman
John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Committee on Immunology, The University of Chicago
Director, Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago
Studies of RNA Methylation and Chromatin Organizations
Over 150 types of post-transcriptional RNA modifications have been identified in all kingdoms of life. We have discovered the first two RNA demethylases, FTO and ALKBH5, which catalyze oxidative demethylation of the most prevalent modifications of mammalian messenger RNA (mRNA) and other nuclear RNA, N6-methyladenosine (m6A). These findings indicate that reversible RNA modification could impact biological regulation analogous to the well-known reversible DNA and histone chemical modifications. We have also characterized proteins that selectively recognize m6A-modified mRNA and affect the translation status and lifetime of the target mRNA, as well as molecular machines that deposit the m6A methylation on mRNA. I will present recent results demonstrating translation promotion mediated through m6A.
How chromosomes fold in the mammalian nucleus can critically impact transcription, DNA replication and other nuclear processes. I will introduce Chemical-crosslinking Assisted Proximity Capture (CAP-C), a new method for studying chromatin architecture. CAP-C utilizes a chemical platform instead of DNA-bound proteins to crosslink spatially adjacent DNA sequences, achieving higher resolution than in situ Hi-C. CAP-C revealed previously unappreciated chromatin domains in mammalian cells and provides new insights on chromatin interactions.