An ambitious EC-funded research initiative on epigenetics advancing towards systems biology

During development of an organism, some genes are activated while others are silenced. It has long been a widespread idea that this developmentally linked gene silencing is permanent and that there is no going back for a cell that has entered a differentiation path. With the discovery of protocols allowing to derive induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from somatic cells it is now clear that long-term silencing of genes is not irrevocable and that most likely, no chromatin state is definitive. Our lab is exploring the signal transduction pathways regulating silencing as well as the mechanisms allowing transcriptional repressors to control gene expression in stem cells and during development. We have also a special interest for the impact of these factors on the regulation of alternative splicing.