Title：Gene expression regulation by RNA Methylation
Lecturer：Doctor Yungui Yang, the Distinguished Researcher of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Time：10:00a.m. ,May 6th,2019(Monday)
Place：Conference Room 210, Chemistry Building(West)
About the Lecturer：
In 1995, he graduated from School of Life Sciences, Fudan University. In 2000, he graduated from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2000 he served as the Postdoctoral/Staff Scientist at the International Cancer Research Institute. In 2005 he served as a postdoctoral at British Cancer Research Institute. In 2008 he becomes a researcher at the Beijing Genomics Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
He is currently developing high-throughput sequencing and analysis techniques for RNA chemical modification, systematically studying the characteristics of RNA methylation and its modifying enzymes, and elucidating the regulatory mechanisms of its function and human disease association. He participated in the discovery of RNA methyltransferase and demethylase, demonstrated the dynamic reversibility of RNA methylation, revealed new mechanisms such as regulation of gene splicing and nucleation, and the important role of RNA methylation in regulating stem cell differentiation and tissue development.
About the Lecture：
Over 100 types of chemical modifications have been identified in various types of RNAs including non-coding RNA and mRNA, among which methylation is the most common modification. The N6- methyl-adenosine (m6A) and N5-methyl-cytosine (m5C) are the most common and abundant internal modifications on mRNA molecules. The recent identification of methyltransferases METTL3/METTL14/WTAP and NSUN2, and m6A demethylases ALKBH5 and FTO, supports the reversibility of RNA methylation. Several YTH-domain-containing proteins YTHDF1-3 and YTHDC1-2 specifically binding to m6A and ALYREF recognizing m5C have been identified to regulate various mRNA processing, suggesting vital roles of RNA modifications in gene expression control. Our recent works revealed indispensable roles of m6A in mRNA translation, spermatogonial differentiation, and haematopoietic stem and progenitor cell specification, and 5-methylcytosine promotes mRNA export. We have further performed RNA-BisSeq to map transcriptomic profiles of m5C in early embryos of Zebra fish and human cancers. We will discuss the recent progress in RNA modifications and their potential biological significance in this seminar.
