Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology Commons^™

Proximate And Evolutionary Insights Into The Epigenetics Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Levent Sipahi

Wayne State University Dissertations

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an important medical and social condition. Although the vast majority of individuals are exposed to traumatic events within their lifetime, a minority subsequently develop diagnosable PTSD. What underlies differential risk and resiliency in the face of trauma is an ongoing research and clinical question with implications for prevention and treatment. Recent work has revealed a putative role of epigenetic variation and modification - most notably DNA methylation - in the etiology of PTSD. That DNA methylation is stable, yet modifiable in response to lived experiences, makes it a strong candidate to mechanistically explain the ontogeny …

Structural And Functional Characterization Of The Mbd2-Nurd Co-Repressor Complex, Megha Desai

Theses and Dissertations

The MBD2-NuRD co-repressor complex is an epigenetic regulator of the developmental silencing of embryonic and fetal β-type globin genes in adult erythroid cells as well as aberrant methylation-dependent silencing of tumor suppressor genes in neoplastic diseases. Biochemical characterization of the MBD2-NuRD complex in chicken erythroid cells identified RbAp46/48, HDAC1/2, MTA1/2/3, p66α/β, Mi2α/β and MBD2 to comprise this multi-protein complex.

In the work presented in Chapter 2, we have pursued biophysical and molecular studies to describe a previously uncharacterized domain of human MBD2 (MBD2_IDR). Biophysical analyses show that MBD2_IDR is an intrinsically disordered region (IDR). Despite this inherent …