Project description
Enhancer-promoter interactions with genomic sequences in mammals
Gene regulation is essential to biological diversity, and enhancers play a crucial role by activating genes from a distance. Yet, how these enhancers locate and interact with their target promoters remains a mystery. Evolution provides a powerful lens through which to study this process. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the EVOCHIC project will use a high-resolution dataset of enhancer-promoter contacts across five mammalian species and three different tissues. By combining this with genomic sequences, enhancer annotations, and gene expression data, the project aims to uncover how these long-range interactions evolve alongside changes in DNA and chromatin structure. EVOCHIC will also develop deep learning models to predict the DNA features that drive the evolution of these interactions.
Objective
Gene regulation is fundamental to biological diversity, driving differences between cell types within an organism and contributing to variation between species. DNA regions known as enhancers play a critical role in this process. Enhancers can be located millions of base pairs away from the genes they regulate, interacting with the promoters of these genes through 3D contacts within the nucleus. How enhancers find their target genes remains largely elusive. Evolution offers a unique “natural perturbation experiment” to study the principles of enhancer-promoter communication. Enhancers, and especially the sequences spanning enhancer-promoter contacts, evolve faster than the gene expression patterns they control. This raises important questions about the genetic and epigenetic factors that sustain and drive the evolution of long-range gene regulation. To address these questions, my computational project will leverage an unpublished, high-resolution dataset on enhancer-promoter contacts from five mammalian species and three tissues, along with corresponding genomic sequences, enhancer annotations, and gene expression data. My analyses will: (1) map how enhancer-promoter contacts co-evolve with genomic sequences, chromatin states, and gene expression, (2) establish how large-scale genomic rearrangements disrupt or constrain these contacts, and (3) develop and train deep learning models to predict DNA sequences underpinning the evolution of enhancer-promoter contacts. By integrating functional genomics, evolutionary biology, and machine learning, this project will uncover the mechanisms behind the evolution of long-range gene regulation, with broad implications for understanding non-coding genetic variation in evolution, disease, and synthetic biology. The fellowship will enhance my expertise in comparative genomics, 3D chromatin biology, and deep learning, while fostering new collaborations and bringing evolutionary insights to the host lab.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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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.
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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)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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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.
Funding Scheme
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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-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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SW7 2AZ London
United Kingdom
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