Seminar

Structural Biology of Methylation-mediated Epigenetic Regulation

Prof. Dinshaw J. Patel

The Dinshaw Patel group applies crystallographic and solution NMR techniques to investigate macromolecular-mediated recognition, regulation and catalysis. The major thrust of the laboratory is currently in the structural biology of RNA silencing and the histone/epigenetics code. The packaging of DNA within chromosomes, the orderly replication and distribution of chromosomes, the maintenance of genomic integrity, and the regulated expression of genes depend upon nucleosomal histone proteins. The lecture of Prof. Dinshaw J. Patel will present the recent research on recognition events controlling epigenetic regulation mediated by methylation marks on histone tails and at CpG sites on DNA. Specific topics will include recognition of methyllysine marks by reader elements in ADDATRX (Haitao Li), TRIM24/33 (Zhanxin Wang) and MLL1 (Zhanxin Wang and Jikui Song), erasure of lysine methylation marks by the KMD2A jumonji family lysine demethylases (Zhongjun Cheng), and DNMT1-mediated active and autoinhibitory mechanisms of maintenance DNA methylation (Jikui Song). Collaborators: Yang Shi (Harvard University) and Haitao Li (Tsinghua University) on ADDATRX, C. David Allis (Rockefeller University) on MLL1, Michelle Barton (MD Anderson Cancer Center) on TRIM24, Joan Massague (Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) on TRIM33, and Or Gozani (UCSF) on KMD2A.