Publicaties

Tandem repeats are short DNA sequences that are repeated head-to-tail with a propensity to be variable. They constitute a significant proportion of the human genome, also occurring within coding and regulatory regions. Variation in these repeats can alter the function and/or expression of genes allowing organisms to swiftly adapt to novel environments. Importantly, some repeat expansions have also been linked to certain neurodegenerative ...

The positions of nucleosomes across the genome influence several cellular processes, including gene transcription. However, our understanding of the factors dictating where nucleosomes are located and how this affects gene regulation is still limited. Here, we perform an extensive in vivo study to investigate the influence of the neighboring chromatin structure on local nucleosome positioning and gene expression. Using truncated versions of the ...

Tandem repeats are intrinsically highly variable sequences since repeat units are often lost or gained during replication or following unequal recombination events. Because of their low complexity and their instability, these repeats, which are also called satellite repeats, are often considered to be useless ‘junk’ DNA. However, recent findings show that tandem repeats are frequently found within promoters of stress-induced genes and within the ...

The DNA of eukaryotic cells is spooled around large histone protein complexes, forming nucleosomes that make up the basis for a high-order packaging structure called chromatin. Compared to naked DNA, nucleosomal DNA is less accessible to regulatory proteins and regulatory processes. The exact positions of nucleosomes therefore influence several cellular processes, including gene expression, chromosome segregation, recombination, replication, and ...

We generated a high-resolution whole-genome sequence and individually deleted 5100 genes in Sigma1278b, a Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain closely related to reference strain S288c. Similar to the variation between human individuals, Sigma1278b and S288c average 3.2 single-nucleotide polymorphisms per kilobase. A genome-wide comparison of deletion mutant phenotypes identified a subset of genes that were conditionally essential by strain, ...

The budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has emerged as an archetype of eukaryotic cell biology. Here we show that S. cerevisiae is also a model for the evolution of cooperative behavior by revisiting flocculation, a self-adherence phenotype lacking in most laboratory strains. Expression of the gene FLO1 in the laboratory strain S288C restores flocculation, an altered physiological state, reminiscent of bacterial biofilms. Flocculation ...

The ability of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to form morphologically complex colony-like structures called mats requires expression of the cell surface glycoprotein Flo11p and growth on a semisolid surface. As the mat grows, it forms two visually distinct populations called the rim (edge of the mat) and the hub (interior of the mat), which can be physically separated from one another based on their agar adherence properties. Here, we show that growth ...