Siegel Lab

Vergrößern

We are interested in how pathogens benefit from cell-to-cell heterogeneity and in the mechanisms controlling heterogeneity in a population. Our research relies on different single cell technologies and many high throughput sequencing-based approaches to study the transcriptome, chromatin organization and genome architecture in unicellular eukaryotes. As a model we use the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of African sleeping sickness.

Research

Key questions of our research are

• What controls cell-to-cell heterogeneity within a population of pathogens?
• What are the biochemical or molecular factors that trigger a switch in antigen expression?
• How does ncRNA contribute to the establishment of distinct interchromosomal DNA-DNA interactions?
• Can RNA-processing hotspots serve as post-transcriptional enhancers?

Technologies used by our group include

• Genome-wide chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C and Micro-C) and FISH to study the 3D genome architecture
• RADICL-seq to identify regulatory, trans-acting RNA molecules
• Ribosome-profiling to study translational control and to identify ncRNA
• ChIP- and Apex2-based methods to study proteins and RNA associated with specific genomic loci
• Single-cell RNA-seq, lineage-tracing and SLAM-seq to yield temporal omic information on molecular triggers of cell-to-cell heterogeneity

Publications

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1715-7907

Scientific vita

People