GROUP LEADER: Luciano Di Croce (ICREA Research Professor)
STAFF SCIENTIST: Sergio Aranda
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS: Pedro Vizan, Enrique Blanco, Valerio Di Carlo
PhD STUDENTS: Marc Garcia, Anna Alcaine, Paul Chammas, Mar Gonzales, Isabel Espejo, Ivano Moncavini
TECHNICIANS: Arantxa Gutierrez, Cecilia Ballare
UNDERGRADUATE/MASTER STUDENTS: Carla Castignani (April-June), Alba Segarra (July-September)
VISITING FELLOW: Stefano Arfe (January-June), Livia Condemi (October-December),
Embryonic stem (ES) cells have the potential to both renew indefinitely in culture, and to differentiate into every cell type of the body. Both processes, self-renewal and differentiation, are governed by transcriptional activation or repression of the relevant genes. Polycomb and Trithorax proteins play a key role in regulating ES cell fate and differentiation. Mechanistically, they function within multiprotein complexes, which repress or activate gene transcription. On the other hand, both complexes are often misregulated in human diseases.
Therefore, the research in our group is focused on the characterization of the role of key components of the Polycomb and Trithorax complex (including novel interactors) in regulating gene expression, stem cell differentiation, chromatin topology and carcinogenesis processes.
Mas G, Blanco E, Ballaré C, Sansó M, Spill YG, Hu D, Aoi Y, Le Dily F, Shilatifard A, Marti-Renom MA, and Di Croce L.
“Promoter bivalency favors an open architecture of the stem cell genome.”
Nature Genetics, 50:1452-1462, 2018.
Sardina JL, Collombet S, Tian TV, Gómez A, Di Stefano B, Berenguer C, Brumbaugh J, Stadhouders R, Segura-Morales C, Gut M, Gut IG, Heath S, Aranda S, Di Croce L, Hochedlinger K, Thieffry D, and Graf T.
“Transcription factors drive Tet2-mediated enhancer demethylation to reprogram cell fate.”
Cell Stem Cell, 23:727-741, 2018.
Pascual-Reguant L, Blanco E, Galan S, Le Dily F, Cuartero Y, Serra-Bardenys G, Di Carlo V, Iturbide A, Cebrià-Costa JP, Nonell L, de Herreros AG, Di Croce L, Marti-Renom MA, Peiró S.
“Genome-wide mapping of lamin B1 reveals the existence of dynamic and functional euchromatin lamin B1 domains (eLADs)”
Nature Communications, 9:3420, 2018.
Conway E, Jerman E, Healy E, Ito S, Holoch D, Deevy O, Di Croce L, Margueron R, Cagney G, Koseki H, and Bracken AP.
“A New Family of Vertebrate Specific Polycomb Proteins Encoded by the LCOR and LCORL Gene Loci Balance PRC2 Subtype Activities.”
Molecular Cell, 70:408–421, 2018.
