Project description
The role of mobile DNA in tissue health
Our bodies rely on a delicate balance between mature cells and progenitor cells to maintain healthy tissues throughout life. However, little is known about how repetitive DNA sequences, called transposable elements (TEs), influence this balance. What is known is that TEs can move and disrupt genes, potentially affecting development, ageing, and diseases such as cancer. In this context, the ERC-funded gutTEimpact project will use the fruit fly intestine, a powerful, genetically tractable model, to explore how TE activity varies across cell types, changes with age or disease, and impacts tissue function. The project’s goal is to reveal how these mobile DNA sequences shape lifelong tissue health and resilience.
Objective
Life-long tissue homeostasis requires sustained function of differentiated cell types as well as progenitor cells, which ensure tissue self-renewal. Little is known about the role that non-genic repetitive DNA sequences play in the maintenance of cellular homeostasis in divers somatic tissues in vivo.
Transposable elements (TEs) are omnipresent, highly repetitive DNA sequences that mobilize and propagate within host genomes. Though previously thought to be fully repressed in the soma, TEs can be actively transcribed and, at least to some extent, mobile in certain somatic tissues. Indeed, somatic TE activity was proposed to contribute to normal development, aging, and pathologic conditions, such as cancer or neurodegeneration, underscoring the potential bearing that these selfish genetic elements could have in the soma. Nevertheless, the dynamics of activity and tissue-specific regulation of TE sequences are poorly understood, as is the impact of TE activity on different somatic cell-types and tissues.
We have recently uncovered that prevalent, tissue-specific TE mobility occurs in the Drosophila intestine and can lead to gene inactivation and tumor formation. Here, using this powerful and genetically amenable in vivo model system, I aim to combine genomic techniques with developmental and cell biology approaches to address the intriguing interplay between TEs and somatic tissue function in vivo. I will ask: 1- How TE activity differs between diverse cell types and how it changes in a tissue under normal or pathological conditions, as well as during aging? 2- What processes control TE activity in somatic cells in vivo?; and 3- What are the direct consequences of TE transcriptional activity and mobility on somatic cell function, and the long-term impacts at a tissue and organism level?
Ultimately the proposed research program will shed new lights on the importance of mobile DNA sequences in the maintenance of lifelong tissue homeostasis in vivo.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences neurobiology
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics DNA
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes
- medical and health sciences basic medicine physiology homeostasis
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2022-STG
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75654 PARIS
France
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