A Postdoc position is now open in the laboratory of Professor Adrian Bracken at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland.

Background And Aim Of The Project

Polycomb group proteins are a family of chromatin regulators that are essential for maintaining cellular identity in higher eukaryotes and are frequently deregulated in human cancer. The Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) is composed of the core proteins, Suz12, Eed, Ezh1/2 and mediates H3K27me1/2/3 methylations. PRC2 associates with several sub-stoichiometric components, including PCL1-3, JARID2, AEBP2 and EPOP, which are thought to confer distinct functional effects, including modifying the activity and association of the complex with chromatin (Holoch and Margueron, 2017).We recently discovered a new family of vertebrate specific PRC2 associated proteins, called PALI1 and PALI2, which also bind to nuclear receptors (Conway et al., 2018). This project will characterise the exciting link between PALI1 and nuclear receptors in mouse embryonic stem cells and in hormone dependent cancers, including prostate and breast cancer.To dissect the mechanism of PALI1/2 function and their interplay with nuclear receptors and PRC2, the project will use a combination of tiled CRISPR screening of protein domains (Shi et al., Nat Biotechnol. 2015 33(6):661-7), in addition to ‘Next-generation’ sequencing approaches (ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, ATAC-seq), proteomics, stem and cancer cell biology and biochemistry.

PLEASE NOTE: The project start date will be mid-late 2018 (depending on availability) and run for approx. 2-3 years.