报告题目：Context-dependent RNA localization to nuclear speckles

报 告 人：Dr Jingyi Fei, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular  Biology, Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, University of Chicago

报告时间：2024年8月9日下午16:00-18:00

报告地点：材料科学与工程学院25号楼346会议室

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材料科学与工程学院

材料科学研究所

高分子材料科学与工程系

2024年7月19日

报告人简介：

Dr. Jingyi Fei is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in chemical physics from the University of Science and Technology of China, and received her Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University. She was then a postdoctoral fellow at the NSF funded Center for the Physics of Living Cells at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Fei’s research lies at the interface of chemistry, physics and biology, with focus to understand the mechanisms by which RNAs and RNA binding proteins mediate gene expression and regulation in both bacterial and eukaryotic systems. In addition to the fundamental biological questions, her lab is also interested in the development of new labeling, imaging and data analysis methods. Dr. Fei is an awardee of the Searle Scholars and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.  

报告摘要：

Eukaryotic cells are highly compartmentalized. In addition to membrane-bound organelles, multivalent interactions among many RNA and protein species often drive the formation of membraneless organelles. Dynamic RNA localization to these phase-separated membraneless organelles profoundly impacts gene expression and other vital cellular activities, provides a key mechanism for stress response and adaptation, and has tight connections to human diseases. Nuclear speckles represent one type of such membraneless organelles in the nucleus of higher eukaryotes, enriched in snRNP species, splicing factors, polyadenylated RNAs and certain long noncoding RNAs. Nuclear speckles are implied to play roles in facilitating pre-mRNA splicing, an essential step during eukaryotic gene expression. However, direct evidence for involvement of nuclear speckles in mRNA metabolism remains a frontier challenge due to its compositional complexity. Using localized transcriptomic analysis, fluorescence microscopy and super-resolution imaging, our recent results demonstrate that the RNA substrates exhibit sequence context-dependent localization and organization in nuclear speckles. Through physically localizing and organizing RNA substrates, nuclear speckles functionally coordinating splicing activities during gene expression and regulation.