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

骨骼肌对一生的健康和福祉都很重要。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。众所周知，许多控制胚胎发育的基因和机制在成年机体中是保守的，并具有类似的功能，例如在肌肉再生和修复期间。该项目将确定基因组中控制发育中骨骼肌遗传程序的区域。我们已经使用基因组学技术在肌肉发育重要基因附近发现了候选调控区域。这名学生将使用功能实验，通过已有的方法在体内验证这些方法，例如显微注射和将荧光报告质粒电穿孔到早期鸟类胚胎中。还将利用生物信息学工具对现有基因组数据集(atac-seq/rna-seq)进行更详细的分析。学生将完全融入一个活泼的实验室，研究禽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.