Coordination and crosstalk of epigenetic pathways via non-catalytic functions of TET proteins (A22)

• Subject Area: General Genetics and Functional Genome Biology
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 213249687

We recently uncovered stage-specific contributions of TET1 and TET2 catalytic activity to the regulation of the methylome and transcriptome of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and epiblast-like cells (EpiLCs). We showed that TET proteins initiate local and gene-specific demethylation at developmental genes directly but regulate global DNA methylation levels indirectly. Surprisingly, we found that the catalytic activity of TET1 and TET2 is largely dispensable for transcriptional regulation. We now aim to dissect the mechanisms by which TET proteins coordinate epigenetic pathways by employing a multi-omics approach to identify the non-catalytic functions of TET1 and TET2 in ESCs.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1064: Chromatin Dynamics
• Applicant Institution: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• Project Head: Dr. Sebastian Bultmann