Team Director Haruhiko Koseki M.D., Ph.D.   1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 230-0045   haruhiko.koseki at riken.jp

Research Area

The Developmental Genetics Research Group studies epigenetic regulation of organ development and stem cell functions, mediated by Polycomb group (PcG) proteins and DNA methylation (5mC) mechanisms. We showed that PcG proteins bind unmethylated CpG dinucleotides via the CxxC domain of KDM2B, which is a component of the non-canonical polycomb repressive complex 1 (ncPRC1). This promotes deposition of H3K27me3 by the polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2), and subsequent recruitment of the canonical PRC1 (cPRC1)- leading to transcriptional silencing. We aim to uncover the factors that regulate: (1) ncPRC1 recruitment to unmethylated CpGs, and, (2) cPRC1 recruitment downstream of PRC2.

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