Christ Leemans

Functional maps of a genomic locus reveal confinement of an enhancer by its target gene.

The paper relocates promoter-reporter constructs to study the positional relationship between the Sox2 gene and its enhancer, revealing gene-mediated confinement of enhancer activity.

Genome - nuclear lamina interactions are multivalent and cooperative

The paper investigates how genomic regions called LADs interact with the nuclear lamina, finding that these interactions are multivalent and cooperative, with some subregions having stronger affinity and influencing neighboring sequences.

Predicting the DNA binding specificity of transcription factor mutants usingfamily-level biophysically interpretable machine learning

The paper develops a method to predict how mutations in transcription factors affect their DNA binding specificity using biophysically interpretable machine learning.

The epigenetic reader MORC3 is required for T cell development in the thymus

This study shows that MORC3 is essential for T cell development in the thymus, as its loss causes developmental arrest and altered chromatin accessibility in DN1 cells.

Chromatin protein complexes involved in gene repression in lamina-associated domains

The paper identifies chromatin regulators involved in gene repression in lamina-associated domains (LADs) through genetic screens, showing that transcription elongation and chromatin remodeling factors, not nuclear lamina proteins, mediate repression.

Widespread chromatin context-dependencies ofDNA double-strand break repair proteins

A multiplexed screen reveals how dozens of proteins sense the local chromatin context to tune the balance between two DNA repair pathways.

Nonlinear control of transcription through enhancer-promoter interactions

The paper quantifies how enhancer-promoter interactions influence transcription through nonlinear relationships and reveals mechanisms of transcriptional control via chromosome structure.

Impact of chromatin context on Cas9-induced DNA double-strand break repair pathway balance

The paper measures how chromatin context influences the balance between DNA repair pathways after Cas9-induced breaks in over 1,000 genomic locations.

Local rewiring of genome - nuclear lamina interactions by transcription.

The paper investigates how gene activation affects nuclear lamina interactions and shows that transcription can locally rewire these interactions without broadly altering chromosomal regions.

Promoter-intrinsic and local chromatin features determine gene repression in lamina-associated domains

The paper shows that LADs create a repressive chromatin environment that affects promoter activity and transcription elongation, with variability in promoter sensitivity to LAD repression.

Easy quantification of template-directed CRISPR/Cas9 editing

The paper introduces TIDER, a method to quantify template-directed CRISPR/Cas9 editing efficiency using an adapted TIDE approach.