Around ninety-eight percent of the human genome is poorly characterised and referred to as genomic dark matter. Dark matter includes retroelements that have co-evolved with us for millions of years. We study the chromatin regulators targeting retroelements with the aim to shed light on the intrinsic immunogenicity of these elements and how we can harness them for cancer immunity.
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Tunbak H, Enriquez-Gasca R, Tie CHC, Gould PA, Mlcochova P, Gupta RK, Fernandes L, Holt J, van der Veen AG, Giampazolias E, Burns KH, Maillard PV, Rowe HM (2020) "The HUSH complex is a gatekeeper of type I interferon through epigenetic regulation of LINE-1s", Nature Communications, 11:5387 (PMID: 33144593)
Robbez-Masson L, Tie CHC, Conde L, Tunbak H, Husovsky C, Tchasovnikarova IA, Timms RT, Herrero J, Lehner PJ, Rowe HM (2018) "The HUSH complex cooperates with TRIM28 to repress young retrotransposons and new genes", Genome Res, 28:836-45 (PMID: 29728366)
Fernandes LP, Enriquez-Gasca R, Gould PA, Holt JH, Conde L, Ecco G, Herrero J, Gifford R, Trono D, Kassiotis G, Rowe HM (2022) "A satellite DNA array barcodes chromosome 7 and regulates totipotency via ZFP819", Science Advances, 8:eabp8085 (PMID: 36306355)
Tie CH, Rowe HM (2017) "Epigenetic control of retrotransposons in adult tissues: implications for immune regulation", Curr Opin Virol, 25:28-33 (PMID: 28675832)