Marcelo A Nobrega
Research Summary / Selected Publications
Our group is interested in dissecting the architecture and function of gene regulatory networks. We investigate how the multiple transcription activators, repressors, boundary elements connected to a gene interact and orchestrate the precise tissue-specific and temporal-specific expression pattern of that gene. Understanding this process is critical since it is thought that malfunction of the regulatory program of certain genes underlie the cause of several human diseases. We focus on heart development and congenital heart diseases as substrates to test our hypotheses, and we use mouse and zebrafish genetic engineering, comparative genomics, bioinformatics and other high throughput genomic screening and validation strategies as experimental tools.
Our group is interested in dissecting the architecture and function of gene regulatory networks. We investigate how the multiple transcription activators, repressors, boundary elements connected to a gene interact and orchestrate the precise tissue-specific and temporal-specific expression pattern of that gene. Understanding this process is critical since it is thought that malfunction of the regulatory program of certain genes underlie the cause of several human diseases. We focus on heart development and congenital heart diseases as substrates to test our hypotheses, and we use mouse and zebrafish genetic engineering, comparative genomics, bioinformatics and other high throughput genomic screening and validation strategies as experimental tools.
Pennacchio LA, Loots GG, Nobrega MA, Ovcharenko I. Predicting Tissue-Specific Enhancers in the Human. Genome Research, 2007 (In press)
Pennacchio LA, Ahituv N, Moses AM, Prabhakar S, Nobrega MA, Shoukry M, Minovitsky S, Dubchak I, Holt A, Lewis KD, Plajzer-Frick I, Akiyama J, De Val S, Afzal V, Black BL, Couronne O, Eisen MB, Visel A, Rubin EM.. In vivo Enhancer Analysis of Human Conserved Noncoding Sequence. Nature 444(7118):499-502, 2006.
Ovcharenko I, Nobrega MA. Identifying synonymous regulatory elements in vertebrate genomes. Nucleic Acids Res. 33: W403-7, 2005.
Poulin F, Nobrega MA, Plajzer-Frick I, Holt A, Afzal V, Rubin EM, Pennacchio LA. In vivo characterization of a vertebrate ultraconserved enhancer. Genomics. 85(6):774-781, 2005.
Boffelli D, Nobrega MA, Rubin EM. Comparative genomics at the vertebrate extremes. Nat Rev Genet.;5(6):456-65, 2004.
Ovcharenko I, Loots GG, Nobrega MA, Hardison RC, Miller W, Stubbs L. Evolution and functional classification of vertebrate gene deserts. Genome Res. 15(1):137-45, 2005.
Nobrega MA, Zhu Y, Plajzer-Frick I, Afzal V, Rubin EM. Megabase deletions of gene deserts result in viable mice. Nature. 21;431(7011):988-93, 2004.
Nobrega MA, Ovcharenko I, Afzal V, Rubin EM. Scanning human gene deserts for long-range enhancers. Science. 302(5644):413, 2003
Pennacchio LA, Loots GG, Nobrega MA, Ovcharenko I. Predicting Tissue-Specific Enhancers in the Human. Genome Research, 2007 (In press)
Pennacchio LA, Ahituv N, Moses AM, Prabhakar S, Nobrega MA, Shoukry M, Minovitsky S, Dubchak I, Holt A, Lewis KD, Plajzer-Frick I, Akiyama J, De Val S, Afzal V, Black BL, Couronne O, Eisen MB, Visel A, Rubin EM.. In vivo Enhancer Analysis of Human Conserved Noncoding Sequence. Nature 444(7118):499-502, 2006.
Ovcharenko I, Nobrega MA. Identifying synonymous regulatory elements in vertebrate genomes. Nucleic Acids Res. 33: W403-7, 2005.
Poulin F, Nobrega MA, Plajzer-Frick I, Holt A, Afzal V, Rubin EM, Pennacchio LA. In vivo characterization of a vertebrate ultraconserved enhancer. Genomics. 85(6):774-781, 2005.
Boffelli D, Nobrega MA, Rubin EM. Comparative genomics at the vertebrate extremes. Nat Rev Genet.;5(6):456-65, 2004.
