An experimental and global comparison of core transcriptional regulatory programs in human to other model organisms will provide insight into the transcription factor binding events that are essential for liver function in mammals. We are detecting evolutionarily conserved regulatory protein binding events and their underlying DNA sequence and are also identifying novel, species-specific binding events. By identifying transcriptional regulatory networks in healthy tissue, we can make comparisons to cancerous, damaged or developing tissues. Furthermore, the methodology, and reagents developed here, will be directly applicable to future studies using a variety of tissues and tumours.
Michael D. Wilson, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Cancer Research UK
Cambridge Research Institute
Li Ka Shing Centre
Robinson Way, Cambridge,
CB2 0RE
phone:01223404502
email: michael.wilson ^at^ cancer ^dot^ org ^uk^
An experimental and global comparison of core transcriptional regulatory programs in human to other model organisms will provide insight into the transcription factor binding events that are essential for liver function in mammals. We are detecting evolutionarily conserved regulatory protein binding events and their underlying DNA sequence and are also identifying novel, species-specific binding events. By identifying transcriptional regulatory networks in healthy tissue, we can make comparisons to cancerous, damaged or developing tissues. Furthermore, the methodology, and reagents developed here, will be directly applicable to future studies using a variety of tissues and tumours.
Ongoing research
Comparative genomics and evolution
Genomic regions associated with duplications, insertions, deletions and disease
7q11 William-Beuren syndrome
7q22 Acute myeloid leukemia
Evolution of new genes
PVRIG and the Paired immunoglobulin like receptors
Novel genes generated by segmental duplication
Understanding mammalian gene function
Zonadhesin -- Zonadhesin is a novel gene that is under positive selection and is hypothesized to play a role in the species specific recognition of sperm and egg in mammals (In collaboration with Steve Tardif, Daniel Hardy and Andras Nagy)
Ars2 -- Ars2 was first discovered by others as a gene that conferred arsenite resistance to an arsenite sensitive cell line. We characterized this gene in humans and mice and are currently studying the phenotype of Ars2 mutants. This is in collaboration with Andras Nagy, Perry Howard, Robert Burke and Diana Wang.
Gnrhr -- This is a collaboration with Dr. Nancy Sherwood and Sheng Wu.
Education
PhD, Department of Biology, University of Victoria.
B.Sc., University of Victoria. Biochemistry and Hispanic studies.
Brown G, Martindale D, Wilson MD, Koop BF. Mouse and human DNA sequence comparisons: further evidence for a mosaic model of genomic evolution. In Sankoff D, Nadeau JH, eds. Comparative Genomics: Empirical and Analytical Approaches to Gene Order Dynamics, Map Alignment and the Evolution of Gene Families. Volume 1 of Series in Computational Biology. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer Academic Press; 2000.
