Abstract
The nuclear lamina (NL) interacts with hundreds of large genomic regions termed lamina associated domains (LADs). Most genes in LADs are repressed, suggesting a role for NL contacts in gene regulation. The dynamics of LAD-NL interactions and the relation to epigenetic modifications are poorly understood. Insight into these interactions will help to understand the spatial organization of interphase chromosomes and the links with gene regulation. We have previously developed a ‘molecular contact memory’ approach to track LADs in living cells. This study revealed that in each nucleus, only a subset of all LADs is positioned at the periphery; these LADs are in intermittent molecular contact with the NL but remain constrained to the periphery. We have recently reported a modified version of our DamID method that can be used to map LAD-NL interactions genome-wide in single cells and we are currently optimizing it to obtain high resolution binding profiles of multiple key regulators of gene expression. I will discuss our most recent insights in the fundamental principles of single-cell chromatin organization.

About Dr. Jop Kind
Jop Kind received his PhD from the Radboud University Nijmegen in 2008 for his work on chromatin and gene expression in the research group of Asifa Akhtar at EMBL. He subsequently joined the lab of Bas van Steensel at The Netherlands Cancer Institute (NL) for his postdoctoral training, where he further studied chromatin and developed techniques to explore nuclear organization in single cells. For this work he received EMBO/LTF and NWO/VENI fellowships. In 2014, he became a group leader at the Hubrecht Institute and was awarded an ERC Starting and a NWO Vidi grant. His group develops novel single cell genomics techniques to dissect the temporal and spatial control of gene expression in development and disease.

Venue: Air&Fire auditorium, SciLifeLab
Date & Time: October 12, 15:30-16:30
Host: Magda Bienko