Active Motif's Podcast

Heterochromatin plays a pivotal role in organizing our genome in the nucleus and separating active from inactive genomic regions. In this Podcast Episode our Guest Gary Karpen from UC Berkeley sits down with our Host Stefan Dillinger to talk about the regulation of this chromatin structure and how DNA repair mechanisms function in this densely packed nuclear compartment. Furthermore, they also discuss how phase separation might be an important part in how heterochromatin domains are formed. References Jamy C. Peng, Gary H. Karpen (2009) Heterochromatic Genome Stability Requires Regulators of Histone H3 K9 Methylation (PLoS Genetics) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000435 Peter V. Kharchenko, Artyom A. Alekseyenko, … Peter J. Park (2011) Comprehensive analysis of the chromatin landscape in Drosophila melanogaster (Nature) DOI: 10.1038/nature09725 Aniek Janssen, Serafin U. Colmenares, … Gary H. Karpen (2019) Timely double-strand break repair and pathway choice in pericentromeric heterochromatin depend on the hi

Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is a chronic metabolic disease, which is caused by the failure of beta-cells in the pancreas and insulin resistance in peripheral tissue and characterized by high glucose levels in the blood. World-wide 382 Million people suffer from Diabetes which makes up 8,3% of the population. Due to this high proportion it is of high interest to find a cure for this disease. The restoration of β-cell mass and function has therefore become a field of intensive research seeking for the next generation of anti-diabetic drugs. Tremendous efforts have been made on deciphering epigenetic regulations that control metabolic tissue function. For several years, the team led by Dr. Jean-Sebastien Annicotte has dissected the molecular links between insulin producing cells, insulin target tissues and T2D/obesity development. Especially, the team research has been focused on the role of cell cycle regulators and their transcriptional co-regulators in the control of metabolic homeostasis, T2D and obesity.   Ref