Danfeng Cai
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biochemistry
Cells switch genes on in a controlled way, and proteins in the nucleus often cluster into small droplet-like compartments that concentrate the molecules needed to read a gene. These biomolecular condensates have no membrane.
- Fields
Biochemistry
Biology
Biophysics
- Topics
biomolecular condensates
phase separation
transcription hubs
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2031
What they work on
- Determine how RNA binding through RNA-recognition motifs, together with coiled-coil domains, drives the NONO-TFE3 and SFPQ-TFE3 fusion oncoproteins to form condensates in the nucleus.
- Test how TFE3 fusion condensates promote translocation renal cell carcinoma growth and invasion, using 2D and 3D cell models and tumor cells grafted into mice.
- Investigate how TFE3 fusion condensates reshape the chromatin landscape and gene transcription in tRCC cells.
- Identify the proteins in YAP transcription hubs formed after hyperosmotic stress, using candidate and unbiased proteomic approaches with live-cell imaging, and test their roles in organizing chromatin and activating genes.
- Use single-particle tracking to test whether YAP hubs form by liquid-liquid phase separation, and multicolor live imaging to test whether they bring the Myc enhancer and promoter together to activate Myc.
More about the research
They are held together by many weak contacts between proteins and nucleic acids. When condensates form in the wrong place or at the wrong time, they can drive disease, including cancer and neurodegeneration. Both projects ask how such clusters form and how they turn genes on: one in normal cell signaling, one in a childhood kidney cancer.
Why it matters
Children and adolescents with TFE3-fusion kidney cancer currently have no targeted treatment. Mapping how NONO-TFE3 and SFPQ-TFE3 condensates form and act could reveal new drug targets among condensate components, their molecular interactions and the genes they control. Understanding how transcription hubs assemble and activate genes may also inform research on cancers and neurodegenerative diseases in which these hubs are disrupted.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
G Greg Wang
Duke University, NC·Biochemistry
Characterize how the previously unstudied intrinsically disordered region of the RNA-binding protein MSI2 drives liquid-liquid phase separation, using purified proteins in vitro and in living cells.
Jiahui Wu
University of Massachusetts, MA·Biochemistry
Develop an RNA tag with ultrahigh affinity to accurately identify the RNA-binding proteins that make up ribonucleoprotein complexes and trigger condensate formation.
Joachim Seemann
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Biology
Identify and characterize the RNA–golgin scaffolds that link Golgi stacks into a ribbon, focusing on how the golgin GM130 recruits RNA to Golgi membranes, using biochemical and microscopy approaches.
The school
Johns Hopkins University: 100 labs on PI Pages, $4.1B a year on research, 622 research doctorates a year.
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