Epigentic control of muscle development: the impact of chromatin accessibility on gene regulation

骨骼肌是重要的健康和幸福的整个生命。为了更好地了解有助于维持这一重要组织的因素，我们研究了它在胚胎中的发育。已知许多控制胚胎发育的基因和机制是保守的，并且在成年生物体中执行类似的功能，例如在肌肉再生和修复期间。该项目将确定基因组中控制骨骼肌发育遗传程序的区域。我们已经使用基因组学技术来发现与肌肉发育重要基因邻近的候选调控区域。学生将使用功能实验来验证这些在体内使用已建立的方法，如显微注射和电穿孔的荧光报告质粒到早期鸟类胚胎。现有的基因组学数据集（ATAC-seq/RNA-seq）也将使用生物信息学工具进行更详细的分析。学生将完全融入一个生动的实验室，研究鸟类胚胎骨骼肌和心脏发育的不同方面。

Skeletal muscle is important for health and well-being throughout life. To understand better the factors that contribute to the maintenance of this important tissue, we study its development in the embryo. It is known that many of the genes and mechanisms that control embryo development are conserved and perform similar functions in the adult organism, for example during muscle regeneration and repair. This project will identify the regions in the genome that control the genetic programme of developing skeletal muscle. We have used genomics techniques to discover candidate regulatory regions in the proximity to genes important for muscle development. The student will use functional experiments to validate these in vivo using established methods, such as microinjection and electroporation of fluorescent reporter plasmids into early avian embryos. The existing genomics datasets (ATAC-seq/RNA-seq) will also be analysed in more detail using bioinformatics tools. The student will be fully integrated into a lively laboratory investigating different aspects of skeletal muscle and cardiac development in avian embryos.