BMC Seminar - Epigenetic machinery disruption in neuronal progenitors

BMC Seminar Thursday October 23rd at 12:30 - 13:10 in Árnagarður, room 306

Speaker: Katrín Möller, post-doctoral fell at Hans T. Björnsson laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland

Title: Shared molecular consequences of epigenetic machinery disruption in neuronal progenitors

Abstract: An emerging group of neurodevelopmental disorders is caused by mutations in members of the epigenetic machinery (EM). The vast majority present with intellectual disability, but also autism, anxiety, adhd, seizures, schizophrenia and other symptoms affecting the nervous system.  Most of these disorders also have unique DNA methylation signatures in blood samples, which is used for diagnostic purposes. However, the shared mechanisms behind the overlapping phenotypes are currently unclear, and it is uncertain to which extent DNA methylation is affected in the nervous system.

In this talk I will present our recent bioRxiv paper, where we knocked 46 EM genes out in murine neuronal progenitor cells to investigate the molecular consequences. Nanopore sequencing revealed suble changes in DNA methylation after most knockouts, with no clear correlation of gene expression. However, RNA sequencing showed massive convergenece between two such factors, which both showed premature differentiation. Two major pathways are emerging as likely candidates for the shared phenotypes, including p53 disregulation, which might contribute to premature differentiation and lineage shift in these EM-KOs.

Bio: Katrín Möller is a postdoc at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland. She finished her Master's degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University in Iceland in 2016 and received her PhD in 2022 at the University of Zurich, under the supervision of Dr. Francesca Peri, where she studied microglia phagocytosis in the developing brain of zebrafish. She moved to Iceland in 2022 to join Dr. Hans Tómas Björnsson's lab, to continue investigating brain development and related disorders.