One of the ways cells control whether genes are turned ‘on’ or ‘off’ is by placing epigenetic tags on their DNA molecule. But when cells are dividing, these tags are removed, meaning they need to be put back once cells have finished dividing. Our aim is to identify and understand the mechanisms cells use to put these tags back in the right place after cells have divided. It is a fundamental question in cell biology since if these tags are lost, cells lose their identity as it is the case during tumorigenesis. It also sheds light on how decisions are taken during development, from a single cell (zygote) to a full organism composed of 200 different cell types.
They key objective of this project is to develop technologies to understand the dynamic of chromatin restoration in cycling cells. We combine in vivo labelling of newly replicated DNA and mass spectrometry analysis. We show that a large proportion of chromatin-based processes are profoundly affected by the DNA replication machinery. These processes include transcription and 3D nuclear architecture.