Campus Event Calendar
Event Entry
What and Who
Epigenetics and epigenomics - coding and decoding of genetic information
Prof. Jörn Walter
Lehrstuhl für Genetik, Universität des Saarlandes
Talk
AG 1, AG 2, AG 3, AG 4, AG 5
MPI Audience
Note: We use this to send email in the morning.
Date, Time and Location
Wednesday, 24 November 2004
17:00
-- Not specified --
46.1 - MPII
024
Saarbrücken
Abstract
With the completion of the human genome the biomedical research is
facing the tremendous challenge to understand the complexity of
differential usage of the genetic information during development.
Genomes are not static blueprints of biological information. Their
activity is modulated by dynamic epigenetic programs in the form of
altered histone-modifications (histone codes), RNA-mediated chromatin
changes and DNA-methylation. The chromosomal patterns of such
modifications are characteristic for each cell type such that an
organisms contains a multitude of epigenomes reflecting the various
cellular identities and developmental stages. Epigenetic programs can be
somatically inherited over many cellular divisions or in rare cases even
be transmitted into the next generation. Incorrect epigenetic programs
are know to contribute to many complex diseases such as tumor
development, imprinting syndromes and many other complex diseases.
<>
Our work focusses on the analyse of DNA-methylation pattern changes in
imprinted genes during mouse development and the consequences of such
events in human pathological situations. We make use of the mouse model
to investigate the basic mechanisms underlying the epigenetic
programming of stem cells which undergo major phases of epigenome
reprogramming. Since epigenetic regulation is in part also a read-out of
the genomic information (i.e. repeat strucutres, gene density, base
content etc.) we have recently started to conduct extensive comparative
analyses to correlate genomic structures to epigenetic programming. A
detailled bioinformatic analysis of such epigenetic and genetic data
will be one of our major goals for the near future.
facing the tremendous challenge to understand the complexity of
differential usage of the genetic information during development.
Genomes are not static blueprints of biological information. Their
activity is modulated by dynamic epigenetic programs in the form of
altered histone-modifications (histone codes), RNA-mediated chromatin
changes and DNA-methylation. The chromosomal patterns of such
modifications are characteristic for each cell type such that an
organisms contains a multitude of epigenomes reflecting the various
cellular identities and developmental stages. Epigenetic programs can be
somatically inherited over many cellular divisions or in rare cases even
be transmitted into the next generation. Incorrect epigenetic programs
are know to contribute to many complex diseases such as tumor
development, imprinting syndromes and many other complex diseases.
<>
Our work focusses on the analyse of DNA-methylation pattern changes in
imprinted genes during mouse development and the consequences of such
events in human pathological situations. We make use of the mouse model
to investigate the basic mechanisms underlying the epigenetic
programming of stem cells which undergo major phases of epigenome
reprogramming. Since epigenetic regulation is in part also a read-out of
the genomic information (i.e. repeat strucutres, gene density, base
content etc.) we have recently started to conduct extensive comparative
analyses to correlate genomic structures to epigenetic programming. A
detailled bioinformatic analysis of such epigenetic and genetic data
will be one of our major goals for the near future.
Contact
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Ruth Schneppen-Christmann, 11/22/2004 13:01 -- Created document.