Upasna Sharma
University of California-Santa Cruz, CA·Biology
A fertilized egg can give rise to every cell of a body, a property called totipotency. How this ability is controlled in the first days of embryo development, before implantation in the uterus, is still poorly understood.
- Fields
Biology
Genetics
Biochemistry
- Topics
totipotency
zygotic genome activation
preimplantation embryo
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Determine whether Mettl7a1, a predicted RNA methyltransferase that adds methyl tags to RNA, is needed for minor zygotic genome activation and normal early development in mouse preimplantation embryos.
- Test how Mettl7a1 controls the totipotency program in mouse embryonic stem cells, building on findings that reducing it lowers totipotency markers and the share of 2-cell-like cells.
- Identify the RNA molecules that METTL7A1 targets and the chemical modifications it places on them, to explain how it regulates gene expression during early embryo development.
More about the research
At first the fertilized egg does not read its own genes. It runs on RNA and proteins supplied by the mother. It then switches on its own genome in a step called zygotic genome activation (ZGA), which happens in a small "minor" wave and then a large "major" wave. One way cells regulate genes after they are copied into RNA is by adding chemical tags, such as methyl groups, to the RNA. This field is known as epitranscriptomics.
Why it matters
Understanding how an RNA-modifying protein controls the earliest stage of embryo development could give new insight into infertility and into diseases linked to early developmental problems. Learning how cells gain totipotency could also inform regenerative medicine approaches that rely on reprogramming cells.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Wei Cui
University of Massachusetts, MA·Biology
Define how loss of maternal MCM4, part of the helicase that unwinds DNA for copying, blocks zygotic DNA replication, using oocyte-specific Mcm4 knockout mice and EdU labeling of new DNA.
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.
Liangliang Sun
Michigan State University, MI·Chemistry
Advance CE-MS top-down proteomics to build a first draft proteoform atlas of HeLa cells. The atlas will contain at least one intact protein form for every protein-coding gene.
The school
University of California-Santa Cruz: 15 labs on PI Pages, $218M a year on research, 183 research doctorates a year.
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