kaylia-duncan@uiowa.edu
Mentor: Robert Cornell, Ph.D.
Lab Room: 1-400 BSB
Lab Phone: 319-335-7725

Transcriptional and cis-regulatory control of the gene network driving periderm differentiation

Aberrant differentiation of the superficial epithelium or epidermis results in a range of diseases including ichthyosis, orofacial clefting and various epidermal cancers. While many genetic mutations have been implicated in the etiology of several skin disorders, the genetic interactions that underlie normal skin development, particularly the interactions driving differentiation have yet to be fully elucidated. The central hypothesis of this project is that in the superficial epithelia, a gene regulatory network (GRN) comprised of transcription factors and cis regulatory elements collaborate with each other to orchestrate differentiation. We consider the zebrafish as an ideal model for this project as the correlate tissue, periderm, is a committed lineage early in development and significant zebrafish genome annotation facilitates genetic studies. Previous work from the Cornell Lab generated a dataset that comprises of genes highly enriched in the periderm, which we will use as a starting point for GRN assembly. We plan to construct a provisional periderm GRN through a series of temporally staged expression data (ISH), pertubation analyses and epistatic tests, along with in-vivo validation enhancers and their bioinformatically predicted cognate transcription factors.

Duncan K, Rosean TR, Tompkins VS, Olivier A, Sompallae R, Zhan F, Tricot G, Acevedo MR, Ponto LL, Walsh SA, Tygrett LT, Berger AJ, Waldschmidt T, Morse HC 3rd, Sunderland JJ, Janz S. (18)F-FDG-PET/CT imaging in an IL-6- and MYC-driven mouse model of human multiple myeloma affords objective evaluation of plasma cell tumor progression and therapeutic response to the proteasome inhibitor ixazomib. Blood Cancer J. 2013 Nov 29;3:e165. doi: 10.1038/bcj.2013.61. PubMed PMID:24292417.

Duncan KM, Mukherjee K, Cornell RA, Liao EC. Zebrafish models of orofacial clefts. Dev Dyn. 2017 Nov;246(11):897-914. doi: 10.1002/dvdy.24566. Epub 2017 Sep 25. Review. PubMed PMID: 28795449; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5777297.

Tompkins VS, Rosean TR, Holman CJ, DeHoedt C, Olivier AK, Duncan KM, Jing X, Foor SD, Acevedo MR, Walsh SA, Tricot G, Zhan F, Janz S. Adoptive B-cell transfer mouse model of human myeloma. Leukemia. 2016 Apr;30(4):962-6. doi: 10.1038/leu.2015.197. Epub 2015 Jul 23. PubMed PMID: 26202932; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4821809.

Duncan K, Rosean TR, Tompkins VS, Olivier A, Sompallae R, Zhan F, Tricot G, Acevedo MR, Ponto LL, Walsh SA, Tygrett LT, Berger AJ, Waldschmidt T, Morse HC 3rd, Sunderland JJ, Janz S. (18)F-FDG-PET/CT imaging in an IL-6- and MYC-driven mouse model of human multiple myeloma affords objective evaluation of plasma cell tumor progression and therapeutic response to the proteasome inhibitor ixazomib. Blood Cancer J. 2013 Nov 29;3:e165. doi: 10.1038/bcj.2013.61. PubMed PMID: 24292417; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3880444.