In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we caught up with Karmella Haynes from Emory University to talk about her work on synthetic chromatin epigenetics.
The Haynes lab focuses on the design of synthetic chromatin sensor proteins. The first one of this kind, the Polycomb Transcription Factor (PcTF), was published in 2011. It senses H3K27me3 and recruits effector proteins to the sites of this modification. This sensor can be brought into cancer cells to activate hundreds of silenced genes. The lab now focuses on characterizing the effects of these sensor proteins genome wide, and seeks to find a way to deliver those sensor into cancer cells, without affecting healthy cells.
In this Episode we discuss how Karmella Haynes got into the field of Epigenetics, how she designed the PcTF sensor proteins, and the way she came to learn how important the right control experiments are. In the end we also discuss her activities to promote diversity and inclusion in science.
References
Haynes, K. A., & Silver, P. A. (2011). Synthetic Reversal of Epigenetic Silencing. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 286(31), 27176–27182. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.C111.229567
Haynes, K. A., Ceroni, F., Flicker, D., Younger, A., & Silver, P. A. (2012). A Sensitive Switch for Visualizing Natural Gene Silencing in Single Cells. ACS Synthetic Biology, 1(3), 99–106. https://doi.org/10.1021/sb3000035
Daer, R. M., Cutts, J. P., Brafman, D. A., & Haynes, K. A. (2017). The Impact of Chromatin Dynamics on Cas9-Mediated Genome Editing in Human Cells. ACS Synthetic Biology, 6(3), 428–438. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.5b00299
Tekel, S. J., & Haynes, K. A. (2017). Molecular structures guide the engineering of chromatin. Nucleic Acids Research, 45(13), 7555–7570. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkx531
Tekel, S. J., Vargas, D. A., Song, L., LaBaer, J., Caplan, M. R., & Haynes, K. A. (2018). Tandem Histone-Binding Domains Enhance the Activity of a Synthetic Chromatin Effector. ACS Synthetic Biology, 7(3), 842–852. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.7b00281
Related Episodes
Transcription and Polycomb in Inheritance and Disease (Danny Reinberg)
Cancer and Epigenetics (David Jones)
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Nutriepigenetics: The Effects of Diet on Behavior (Monica Dus)
Investigating the Dynamics of Epigenetic Plasticity in Cancer with Single Cell Technologies (Céline Vallot)
Epigenetic Regulation of Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Differentiation (Margaret “Peggy” Goodell)
Genome-Wide Investigation of Epigenetic Marks and Nucleosome Positioning (Keji Zhao)
The Role of lncRNAs in Tumor Growth and Treatment (Sarah Diermeier)
Unraveling Mechanisms of Chromosome Formation (Job Dekker)
Transcription and Polycomb in Inheritance and Disease (Danny Reinberg)
The Epigenetics of COVID-19
Epigenetic Reprogramming During Mammalian Development (Wolf Reik)
In vivo Nucleosome Structure and Dynamics (Srinivas Ramachandran)
Pioneer Transcription Factors and Their Influence on Chromatin Structure (Ken Zaret)
The Role of Small RNAs in Transgenerational Inheritance in C. elegans (Oded Rechavi)
Development of Site-Specific ChIP Technologies (Hodaka Fujii)
Regulation of Chromatin Organization by Histone Chaperones (Geneviève Almouzni)
How the "Fragile Nucleosome" Science Community Came to Life (Christine Cucinotta, Melvin Noe Gonzalez)
Epigenetic Influence on Memory Formation and Inheritance (Isabelle Mansuy)
Influence of Dynamic RNA Methylation on Gene Expression (Chuan He)
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The Role of Non-Histone Proteins in Chromosome Structure and Function During Mitosis (Bill Earnshaw)
Effects of DNA Methylation on Chromatin Structure and Transcription (Dirk Schübeler)
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