To establish and maintain organ structure and function, tissues need to balance stem cell proliferation and differentiation rates and coordinate cell fate with position.
His research focuses on understanding how epigenetic tags on DNA affect gene expression and coordinate cell fate and function, as well as on the role played by long noncoding RNAs and other RNA structures in biological regulation.
Chang's research focuses on understanding how small molecules attached to the DNA affect gene expression and coordinate cell fate and function, as well as on the role played by long noncoding RNAs and other RNA structures in biological regulation.
In mice a single stem cell population maintains the adult epidermis by coordinating cell fate and using existing tissue organization.
Hox proteins are well-established developmental regulators that coordinate cell fate and morphogenesis throughout embryogenesis.
However, technical challenges have impaired the study of the molecular interactions coordinating cell fate choice and cell-cycle progression.
In particular, a suite of intercellular signaling mechanisms, commonly referred to as developmental pathways, are used iteratively and combinatorially to coordinate cell fate and function during embryogenesis, as well as to control postnatal tissue homeostasis.
More specifically, it has been shown that miRNAs play critical roles in the survival and recovery from starvation-induced L1 diapause (Zhang et al. 2011) and that a feedback loop involving DAF-12 and let-7 family miRNA members coordinates cell fate decisions with starvation-induced dauer arrest (Bethke et al. 2009; Hammell et al. 2009; Karp and Ambros 2012).
The growth of a metazoan body relies on a series of highly coordinated cell-fate decisions by stem cells which can undergo self-renewal, reversibly enter a quiescent state, or terminally commit to a cell specification program.
Lhx1 is initially expressed in the Spemann-Mangold organizer in Xenopus [19], a region that coordinates cell fate specification and axis formation [20], [21].
We then explored the novel function of BCLAF1 in the γH2AX-coordinated cell fate-determining pathways under different radiation conditions including those diverse phenotypes associated with either induction of apoptosis in irreparable cells, or cell survival with active DNA repair, or cell survival toward carcinogenesis.
