Asifa Akhtar
Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, Freiburg, Germany
X chromosomal regulation
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Over the last decade, the focus of the Akhtar laboratory has been to study the chromatin and epigenetic mechanisms underlying X-chromosome specific gene regulation using Drosophila dosage compensation as a model system. In Drosophila, dosage compensation is achieved by hyperactivation of the single X chromosome in males in comparison to the two female X chromosomes. They study how the dosage compensation complex, composed of RNA and proteins (The Male Specific Lethal (MSL) complex) gets targeted to the X chromosome and modulates transcriptional output. They are also interested in studying how nuclear organization influences X-chromosomal regulation.
People involved in the lab:
- Thomas Conrad, postdoc
- Thomas Lingg, PhD student
