Pavla Brachova
Old Dominion University, VA·Biology
Before an embryo can switch on its own genes, it lives on messenger RNAs (mRNAs) stored by the mother in the egg cell, or oocyte. These maternal mRNAs must then be cleared away on schedule.
- Fields
Biology
Genetics
Biochemistry
- Topics
RNA modifications
epitranscriptomics
inosine
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2030
What they work on
- 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.
- Test how inosine-driven changes in translation speed up maternal mRNA clearance, using in vivo imaging and combined single-molecule and single-oocyte assays.
- Catalog the combined 'RNA modification code' on whole, individual transcripts in oocytes, using new RNA-sequencing approaches, to relate multiple modifications to mRNA stability and clearance.
More about the research
If clearance goes wrong, the handoff from mother to embryo, called the maternal-to-zygotic transition, can stall, and the embryo dies early. Oocytes are unusual because they make no new RNA at this stage. Instead, translation, the process that reads mRNA into protein, is coupled to mRNA destruction. How this coupled process is controlled is poorly understood.
Why it matters
Failures in clearing maternal mRNA can end embryonic development very early. Understanding how inosine and other RNA modifications control this process adds basic knowledge of how cells regulate genes after RNA is made. Because these principles are expected to apply to other cells too, the work could eventually inform studies of early embryo development and wider areas of human health and disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jean-Denis Beaudoin
University of Connecticut, CT·Genetics
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.
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.
Nehemiah Alvarez
Old Dominion University, VA·Biology
Determine how different RNA modifications, chemical changes built into synthetic mRNA, affect the stability and translation of injected Patl2 mRNA in mouse oocytes.
The school
Old Dominion University: 8 labs on PI Pages, $76M a year on research, 143 research doctorates a year.
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