Topic: Decode and recode the complex genome

Speaker: Prof. Li YANG
                CAS Key Lab of Computational Biology

Time: 16:00, Nov 20th (Wednesday)

Place: Lecture Hall, Main Building, 320 Yueyang Road

Abstract: Dr. Li Yang’s lab focuses on integrating novel computational pipelines/algorithms with deep sequencing technologies to study a variety of new types of long noncoding RNAs, including circular RNAs, to uncover cross-talks between different types of RNA modifications/editing, and to develop new genome editing toolkits at single nucleotide resolution. Recently, by developing and applying a series of new RNA-seq strategies and specific computational pipelines for circRNA analyses, Dr. Yang’s lab has shown that circRNAs are widely expressed in transcriptomes from different species, that the biogenesis of circRNAscan be modulated by both intronic complementary sequences (ICSs) and/or RNA binding proteins, and that the unique structure of circRNAs and their binding and regulation of the innate immune dsRNA receptor PKR is crucial for immune responses (Zhang et al, Cell 2014; Zhang et al, Genome Res 2016; Zhang et al, Cell Rep 2016; Dong et al, RNA Biol 2017; Li et al, Mol Cell 2017; Liu et al, Cell 2019; etc). In addition, Dr. Yang’s lab has collaborated to develop distinct base editors (BEs), including but not limited to human APOBEC3A (hA3A)-conjugated BEs that mediate efficient C-to-T base editing in regions with high-methylation levels and CRISPR/Cpf1-based BEs that recognize a T-rich PAM (Wang et al Nat Biotechnol, 2018a; Li et al Nat Biotechnol, 2018b; etc) for targeted C-to-T base editing. By systematically analyzing the accessibilities of twenty BEs to all reported human pathogenic-related T-to-C or C-to-T point mutations in silico, Dr. Yang’s lab has constructed a BEable-GPS (Base Editable prediction of Global Pathogenic SNVs) database (http://www.picb.ac.cn/rnomics/BEable-GPS) to profile the BE editable pathogenic SNVs and provide gRNA designs for pathogenic SNVs and genomic sites with its embedded toolsets (Wang et al Genome Biol, 2019). In his talk, Dr. Yang will summary current understanding of circRNA and base editing and also update recent progresses.