Here are summaries of a selection of the papers published by GCB faculty in July and August 2018:
TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS AND GENE EXPRESSION
The Reddy lab, in collaboration with Charlie Gersbach and Greg Crawford, investigated what controls interactions between glucocorticoid receptor binding sites and their target genes. Read more
Greg Crawford was part of a team that used integrative analyses, combining high-throughput genomic and epigenomic data with sequence-based computations, to identify the causal transcriptional components in a given tissue. This general systems approach can identify candidate causal variants and the components of gene regulatory networks to help better understand the mechanisms of complex disorders at a tissue or cell-type basis. Read more
Amy Schmid and team used DNA segmentation methods to detect and quantify genome-wide copy number variation (CNV) in large compendia of high-throughput datasets in a model archaeal species. Read more
GENETICS
Avshalom Caspi, Terrie Moffitt and team used the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study, a representative birth cohort of young-adult twins based in the U.K., to explore the factors influencing epigenetic variation between individuals, focusing on DNA methylation. Read more
Terrie Moffit and Avshalom Caspi and team tested if education-linked polygenic scores predicted social mobility in over 20,000 individuals in five longitudinal studies in the United States, Britain, and New Zealand. Read more
DISEASE
Greg Crawford, Greg Wray, Tim Reddy and team characterized chromatin accessibility in the human prefrontal cortex, explored the effect of schizophrenia and age on chromatin accessibility, and provided evidence that their dataset will allow for fine mapping of risk variants. Read more
Sandeep Dave was part of a team that conducted genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 knockout screens in eight primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) cell lines to better understand PEL and identify novel strategies for therapeutic intervention. Read more
The Chiba-Falek lab pioneered the development of a new therapeutic strategy for Parkinson’s disease targeting the machinery that controls the expression of SNCA gene. Read more