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| Max Planck Research Group Fischle |
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Chromatin Biochemistry
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Chromatin is the physiological template of genetic information controlling the capacity of a cell’s genome to store, release, and inherit biological information. The fundamental unit of chromatin is the nucleosome: a stretch of DNA wrapped around a core of histone proteins. Post-translational modifications of histones have emerged as key for regulating chromatin structure and dynamics and are thought to crucially control genome activity. Whereas more and more histone modification marks are being identified that alone or in combination could mediate distinct biological conditions of a cell and while correlative studies have begun to establish unambiguous links between several states of chromatin, various histone modifications, and diverse biological processes, our knowledge of how certain histone modifications exert their biological effects on a molecular/biochemical level is still very limited.
We use a variety of biochemical, biophysical, and cell and molecular biological techniques to gain mechanistic insight(s) into the signaling pathways and biological role of single but also combinations of histone modification marks. We are especially interested in proteins that recognize distinct histone modification marks and the mechanisms by which these effector proteins regulate chromatin organization and dynamics. We anticipate that our studies will ultimately result in a detailed understanding of the fundamental ‘epigenetic’ regulatory pathways that cause inheritable changes in gene function and expression, but do not involve changes in DNA sequence.
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