What do we study?
Invasion of foreign nucleic acids, including transposon and viruses, is a fundamental threat to virtually the genome of all organisms. Failure to defend against foreign nucleic acids can lead to diseases, including infertility and cancer. Using nematode C. elegans as a model organism, our research have demonstrated a critical role of piRNA, germline enriched small RNAs, in silencing transposons and transgenes with foreign sequences.
We aim to address three fundamental questions regarding to such a genome defense system:
(1) How does the organism recognize the invading nucleic acids as “foreign” to mount a defense response?
(2) How does the organism mark “self” genes to keep them from being recognized?
(3) How does dysfunction of such genome defense system contribute to infertility?
We aim to address three fundamental questions regarding to such a genome defense system:
(1) How does the organism recognize the invading nucleic acids as “foreign” to mount a defense response?
(2) How does the organism mark “self” genes to keep them from being recognized?
(3) How does dysfunction of such genome defense system contribute to infertility?
