Jean-Denis Beaudoin
University of Connecticut, CT·Genetics
Right after fertilization, an animal embryo barely reads its own genes. Instead, it runs on messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and proteins supplied by the mother's egg until control passes to the embryo's own genome.
- Fields
Genetics
Biology
Biochemistry
- Topics
epitranscriptome
RNA modifications
RNA structure
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Generate detailed maps of the epitranscriptome, the chemical modifications on RNA, across the native zebrafish transcriptome during the maternal-to-zygotic transition, and test how specific modifications affect gene expression.
- Determine the folded shapes formed by RNA regions that are structurally remodeled during the maternal-to-zygotic transition, and analyze how these folds affect regulation of the RNA.
- Identify trans-factors that recognize specific RNA modifications or structures, and study how knocking out these factors changes gene expression and zebrafish development.
- Examine how RNA modifications and RNA structures cooperate to control gene expression after transcription in the early zebrafish embryo, using multi-omics approaches.
More about the research
This handoff, called the maternal-to-zygotic transition, happens in all animals. Because the embryo makes little new RNA during this period, development depends on controlling the maternal RNAs already present. When that control fails, development stalls or goes wrong.
Why it matters
This basic research seeks to explain how the chemical marks and folded shapes of RNA control which genes are used as a fertilized egg develops into an organism. The project expects this knowledge to eventually help explain human development and how faulty RNA regulation can lead to developmental defects or disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Pavla Brachova
Old Dominion University, VA·Biology
Determine how inosine, a chemical modification in the coding region of mRNA, affects translation in oocytes, including whether it causes amino acid substitutions, using proteomics and RNA-sequencing approaches.
Fadia Ibrahim
Thomas Jefferson University, PA·Biochemistry
Measure how cellular conditions that stall ribosomes change the mRNA fragments produced by ribothrypsis, using transcriptome-wide sequencing methods that capture both ends of each mRNA.
Crystal Conn
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Biochemistry
Map the post-transcriptional layer of gene expression missing from annotated genomes by cataloging alternative ribosome initiation sites, combining unbiased ribosome sequencing with proteomic profiling to define the full oncogenic proteome including unannotated micropeptides.
The school
University of Connecticut: 31 labs on PI Pages, $434M a year on research, 360 research doctorates a year.
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