Songtao Jia
Columbia University, NY·Genetics
Every cell in the body carries the same DNA, yet cells keep distinct identities and pass them on when they divide. Part of the answer lies in chemical tags on histones, the proteins that DNA wraps around.
- Fields
Genetics
Biochemistry
Biology
- Topics
heterochromatin
epigenetics
epigenetic inheritance
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Determine how ubiquitylation of histone H3 at lysine 14 (H3K14ub) stimulates the H3K9 methyltransferase enzymes that create heterochromatin's key silencing mark in fission yeast.
- Examine how H3K14ub is regulated in living fission yeast cells to support the assembly of heterochromatin at repetitive DNA.
- Use eSPAN, a sequencing method that tracks histones on newly copied DNA, with yeast genetics to find mechanisms controlling how parental histones are distributed to the two DNA strands during replication.
- Test how the distribution of parental histones contributes to the epigenetic inheritance of heterochromatin across cell divisions.
More about the research
These tags help control which genes are on or off, and defects in them cause developmental disorders and other diseases. This lab uses fission yeast, a simple and genetically easy-to-manipulate single-celled organism, to study heterochromatin. Heterochromatin is tightly packed, silenced DNA that forms mostly at repetitive DNA sequences, where it helps regulate genes and protect the genome. The lab asks how different histone-tagging activities work together to create these silent states, and how cells copy the states into their daughter cells.
Why it matters
Faulty heterochromatin contributes to developmental disorders and cancer progression, while blocking heterochromatin can boost cancer immunotherapy. Working out how heterochromatin forms and is inherited in a simple model organism could provide mechanistic insight to aid the development of new treatment strategies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Fei Li
New York University, NY·Genetics
Define how low-level transcription of centromeres into RNA is regulated in fission yeast and what role it plays in centromere function and chromosome segregation.
Yongjie Xu
Wright State University, OH·Genetics
Determine how mutations in the Rad3-Rad26 complex, the RecQ helicase Rqh1, the Smc5/6 complex and RPA impair Rad3 (ATR) checkpoint signaling at stalled replication forks, using fission yeast mutants in vivo and in vitro.
Rupa Sridharan
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Genetics
Test how KDM3B, an enzyme that removes the repressive H3K9me2 histone mark, controls DNA demethylation carried out by the Tet enzymes during the transition from the post-implantation epiblast to primordial germ cells.
The school
Columbia University: 89 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 625 research doctorates a year.
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