We are interested in chromatin-based mechanisms that control gene expression and cell-to-cell heterogeneity in budding yeast and mammals.

Our group has strong experience in chromatin biochemistry, live-cell imaging, various “omics” approaches, and establishment of data analysis pipelines as well as custom made microfluidics technologies to track single yeast cells within populations over long periods. Combining these approaches, our lab is, for example, investigating the inheritance of transcriptional states through cell divisions (transcriptional memory), cell-to-cell heterogeneity or transcriptional noise.

As a model to study cell-to-cell heterogeneity, we are currently using S. cerevisiae due to its fast generation time, asymmetric budding (facilitating inheritance analysis) and amenability to genetic high throughput screens.

Our goal is to understand how dynamic changes in chromatin structures and genome architecture can influence gene expression at the single-cell level and how (mechanistically) gene expression states are inherited.

Transcription, gene expression noise, chromatin, live-cell imaging, microfluidics, cell-to-cell variation, inheritance, pedigree analysis

Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast)