Pin-Xian Xu
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Genetics
How does a small group of early cells know what to become? In the developing embryo, a few progenitor cells, meaning cells not yet committed to a final type, must give rise to the hair cells and neurons we hear with, and to the nephrons, the tiny filtering units of the kidney.
- Fields
Genetics
Biology
Neuroscience
- Topics
Eya1
Six1
Sox2
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Dec 2027
What they work on
- Test whether removing Brg1, part of the Brg1-BAF chromatin remodeling complex, from Eya1-expressing inner ear progenitors at different stages closes off enhancers that guide sensory and neuronal fate.
- Determine whether many inner ear enhancer sites are jointly controlled by Brg1-BAF together with the gene regulators Eya1-Six1 or Sox2, producing a timed map of regulatory DNA for hearing cell identity.
- Investigate whether Eya1-bound DNA control elements containing RE1 sites, where the gene-silencing REST complex binds, keep nephron progenitor cells in their progenitor state.
- Examine how the partnership between Eya1 and the BAF chromatin remodeling complex controls nephron progenitor identity and their commitment to forming nephrons.
More about the research
Errors in this process can cause deafness at birth and congenital kidney disease. The lab's work centers on one protein, Eya1, which turns genes on or off by partnering with DNA-binding proteins rather than binding DNA itself. Both projects ask how Eya1 and its partners, including chromatin remodelers that open up packed DNA, steer progenitors toward the right fate in the ear and the kidney.
Why it matters
About one in 1,000 children has severe deafness at birth or in early childhood, and congenital kidney diseases are the most common birth defects, while Wilms tumor is the main childhood kidney cancer. By mapping how Eya1 and its partners control progenitor cells, this work could reveal causes of these conditions and may eventually guide efforts to regenerate hair cells and neurons or prevent and treat kidney disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Hamilton Hodges
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Biochemistry
Determine how cellular signals influence which binding partners SWI/SNF chromatin remodelers (cBAF, PBAF, GBAF) select, using rapid perturbations in living cells with epigenomic and proteomic readouts.
Mohammad Nazim
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Neuroscience
Determine how the DPF2 splicing switch from the short to the brain-specific long form shapes neuronal and non-neuronal cell types, using CRISPR-edited embryonic stem cells differentiated into glutamatergic neurons and mice expressing only one form.
Jiang Wu
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Neuroscience
Determine how phosphorylation of BRG1, a chromatin remodeling protein, triggered by neuronal activity primes enhancers of activity-regulated genes by setting up a cohesin-dependent folding of chromosomes in 3D.
The school
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: 45 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 62 research doctorates a year.
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