Chromatin

How selfish repetitive DNA is distinguished from ‘normal’ DNA and silencing remains an intriguing and rich set of unsolved puzzles.  Unlike baker’s yeast, the yeast pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans has maintained conserved gene silencing systems, including a Polycomb system, DNA methylation, and RNAi.  The powerful genetics of C. neoformans now enables these systems to be investigated in ways not otherwise possible. Our published work on these systems has yielded several surprises.  We seek to understand these key and interesting questions: how repetitive elements are distinguished, how different types of repressed domains are kept separate (especially when they are condensates), and how the fidelity of the inheritance of chromatin marks is maintained (sometimes over million year timescales).