Patrick Varga-Weisz

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Research summary

Chromatin is a highly dynamic structure to accommodate its many tasks in regulating, organizing, safeguarding and packaging the genetic material. We are interested in understanding the mechanisms behind this sophisticated cellular machinery. Key components that impart this dynamic state are special enzymes, so called chromatin remodelling factors, many of which target the nucleosome, the basic building block of chromatin.

The enzymology of chromatin remodelling is a largely new territory with opportunities for many exciting discoveries. One particular class of chromatin remodelling factors uses the energy gained by ATP hydrolysis to remodel nucleosomes: The nucleosome may be shifted, altered or blasted away, but some of these factors, such as Imitation Switch (ISWI), are also involved in nucleosome assembly. The Varga-Weisz laboratory studies such ATP-dependent nucleosome remodelling factors, their role in the cell (in chromatin replication) and their mechanisms of action. (More...)