Varga-Weisz Lab Profile

Research Focus: Nucleosome Dynamics

Chromatin is a highly dynamic structure to accommodate its many tasks in regulating, organizing, safeguarding and packaging the genetic material. Key components that impart this dynamic state are chromatin remodeling factors that use the energy gained by ATP hydrolysis to remodel nucleosomes: The nucleosome may be shifted, altered or blasted away, but some of these factors, such as Imitation Switch (ISWI), are also involved in nucleosome assembly. It is thought nucleosome remodeling by these ATP-dependent enzymes is involved in many regulatory processes by controlling access of various factors to DNA. These enzymes are involved in epigenetic inheritance. The Varga-Weisz laboratory studies these ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling factors, their role in the cell (in chromatin replication) and their mechanisms of action. We use various model systems, including budding and fission yeast and mammalian cells. Recent work from our laboratory suggest roles for ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling factors in the replication of chromatin structures right at the DNA replication site (Poot et al., Nature Cell Biology, 2004).