Members

Group Leader:

Luciano Di Croce (ICREA Research Professor)

Postdoctoral Fellows:

Lluis Morey (until August 2015), Malte Beringer, Pedro Vizan, Enrique Blanco, Gloria Mas, Sergio Beltran, Valerio Di Carlo (from June 2015), Miriam Sanso (from December 2015)

PhD Students:

Payal Jain (until September 2015), Andreas Lakner (until November 2015), Alexandra Santanach, Anna Alcaine, Paul Chammas

Technicians:

Arantxa Gutierrez, Cecilia Ballare

Selected Publications

Rondinelli B, Rosano D, Antonini E, Frenquelli M, Montanini L, Huang D, Segalla S, Yoshihara K, Amin SB, Lazarevic D, The BT, Verhaak RG, Futreal PA, Di Croce L, Chin L, Cittaro D, Tonon G.
“Histone demethylase JARID1C inactivation triggers genomic instability in sporadic renal cancer.”
J Clin Invest, 125:4625-37 (2015).

Morey L, Santanach A, Blanco E, Aloia L, Nora EP, Bruneau BG, and Di Croce L.
“Polycomb regulates mesoderm cell fate-specification in embryonic stem cells through activation and repression mechanisms.”
Cell Stem Cell, 17:300-15 (2015).

Aranda S, Mas Martín G, and Di Croce L.
“Regulation of gene transcription by Polycomb proteins.”
Science Advances, 1:e1500737 (2015).

Morey L, Santanach A, and Di Croce L.
“Pluripotency and epigenetic factors in embryonic stem cell fate regulation.”
Mol Cell Biol, 35:2716-28 (2015).

Aloia L, Gutierrez A, Caballero JM, and Di Croce L.
“Direct interaction between Id1 and Zrf1 controls neural differentiation of embryonic stem cells.”
EMBO Rep, 16:63-70 (2015).

Summary

Embryonic stem (ES) cells have the potential to both renew indefinitely in culture, and to differentiate into every cell type of the body. Both processes, self-renewal and differentiation, are governed by transcriptional activation or repression of the relevant genes. Polycomb proteins play a key role in regulating ES cell fate and differentiation. Mechanistically, they function within multiprotein complexes, called Polycomb repressive complexes (PRCs), which modify histones (and other proteins) and silence target genes. On the other hand, Polycomb proteins are often misregulated in human cancers.

Therefore, the research in our group is focused on the characterization of the role of key components of the Polycomb complex (including novel interactors) in regulating gene expression, stem cell differentiation, chromatin compaction and carcinogenesis processes.

Research projects

Variations in the composition of PcG complexes during mESC differentiation
Role of PCL proteins in mESC differentiation and cancer
Characterization of novel interactors of Polycomb complexes
Role Zrf1 in the establishments and maintenance of neural progenitor identity