Transcriptional_networks_controlling_the_development_and_differentiation_of_haematopoietic_stem_progenitor_cells_-sc-2011-04-05T11:04:45Z-647
Transcriptional_networks_controlling_the_development_and_differentiation_of_haematopoietic_stem_progenitor_cells_
Our focus is to investigate the regulatory networks which are involved in the development and subsequent differentiation of haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. The aim is to identify new targets and co-operative binding partners of established stem cell transcription factors as well as identifiying new important transcriptional regulators.
Haematopoiesis has long served as a model system for adult stem cells with many paradigms of stem cell biology first being established as a result of studying haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs).  A large body of work over the last 25 years has established that transcription factors play critical roles during the specification, maintenance and/or differentiation of HSCs.  However, the underlying mechanisms have remained largely obscure because of a lack of comprehensive data on target genes as well as very limited information on the way key transcription factors interact to form the regulatory networks that control blood stem cell development and subsequent behaviour. The advent of deep-sequencing technology has made the genome-wide mapping of transcription factor binding events an attractive strategy for the identification of transcription factor target genes and subsequent reconstruction of gene regulatory networks. Coupling ChIP with deep-sequencing (so-called ChIP-Seq approach) has recently been successful in delineating key aspects of the gene regulatory networks controlling pluripotency in embryonic stem cell lines. Our aim is to investigate several transcription factors, known to be important in haematopoiesis, and to analyse the different combinations of these transcription factors in regulatory complexes involved in controlling specific regulatory elements.