Author Spotlight: Enhancements in Gene Expression Regulation Research

Our research aims to understand the fundamental regulatory mechanisms controlling gene expression in the brain, and we're particularly interested in understanding how disruption of these mechanisms contributes to neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions. We focus on understanding how genetic and environmental risk factors combined to alter cellular function and produce behavioral impairments. This protocol includes methods for high-throughput screening of histone modifications in isolated microglia, allowing us to screen through dozens of different epigenetic modifications before committing to high-throughput sequencing, and functional follow-up studies.

Our protocol provides measures of global histo modifications similar to Western plot. However, our technique is both faster, requires fewer input cells, is more quantitative, and can be multiplexed.