Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering Prospective Faculty Seminar

 

Monday, July 31, 2023

9:30-10:20am

MJIS 1083 or Via Zoom:

https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/95037790369

 

 

Illuminating neurobiology and pathology by cellular reprogramming and spatial omics

 

A person taking a selfie Description automatically generated

Cheen Euong Ang

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Harvard University

 

Abstract: Genome-wide association studies have revealed single nucleotide polymorphism and copy number variants associated with neurological diseases. Generally, mutations in the coding genes are decipherable based on our knowledge of splicing and the genetic code. However, how mutations in the regulatory elements or non-coding RNAs contribute to neurological diseases remain an open area of investigation. Elucidating how non-coding regions contribute to pathogenesis is hindered by: (a) the lack of access to healthy or diseased human brain tissue samples and (b) the lack of tools to visualize the spatial activity of regulatory elements and non-coding RNAs within the nucleus and across brain tissue and how their spatial activity regulates gene expression.

In the first part of my talk, I will describe the development of reprogramming protocols to obtain human neurons via direct conversion of somatic or embryonic stem cells into induced neurons and the use of those neurons to model a non-coding RNA mutation found in autism spectrum disorder patients. Additionally, I will present my recent work in developing spatial transcriptomic and epigenomic imaging methods to shed light on gene regulation and enhancer dynamics during nervous system development. The research presented showcases the promise of using neuronal reprogramming and spatial imaging to deepen our understanding of neurodevelopmental processes and the role of non-coding mutations in neurological diseases, potentially informing the future development of new therapeutic strategies.

 

  1. Tanabe, K.*, Ang, C.E.*, Chanda, S., Levinson, D., Sudhof, T.C., & Wernig, M. Transdifferentiation of human adult peripheral blood T cells into neurons. PNAS. 115 (25) 6470-6475. (2018).
  2. Ang, C.E.*, Wapinski, O.*, Ma, Q.*, Fan, S., Coe, B., Onoguchi, M., Do, B.T., Dukes-Rimsky, L., Xu, J., Lee, Q.Y., Wang, L., Eichler, E.E., Srivastava, A., Elling, U., Penninger, J., Wernig, M., & Chang, H.Y. The novel lncRNA lnc-NR2F1 is pro-neurogenic and mutated in human neurodevelopmental disorders. eLife. 2019;8: e41770 (2019)
  3. Lu, T.*, Ang, C.E.*, Zhuang, X. Spatially resolved epigenomic profiling of single cells in complex tissues. Cell. 185, 117. (2022).
  4. Wang, G., Ang, C.E., Fan, J., Wang, A., Moffitt, J.R., Zhuang, X. Spatial organization of the transcriptome in individual neurons. In revision.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.07.414060v1.abstract

 

~BME Host: Young Kim~