Joachim Griesenbeck

September 2004 - August 2010
Group Leader at the University of Regensburg (Germany), Lehrstuhl Biochemie III, Chair: Prof. Dr. Herbert Tschochner

April 2003 - July 2004
Life Science Research Associate at Stanford University (U.S.A.), Department of Structural Biology, Laboratory of Prof. Dr. Roger D. Kornberg

March 1998 - March 2003
Postdoctoral Position at Stanford University (U.S.A.), Department of Structural Biology, Laboratory of Prof. Dr. Roger D. Kornberg

Keywords

Chromatin, Transcription, ribosomal RNA, ribosomal DNA, PHO5

Primary research interest

The genetic information of the eukaryotic cell is accommodated by the structure of chromatin. To administrate the information encoded in the DNA the cell employs multiple mechanisms regulating protein-DNA transactions in the context of chromatin. Research of the past two decades has demonstrated that chromatin undergoes dynamic changes depending on its functional state: The major chromatin components, the histones, are subject to covalent modifications by specific enzymatic activities, furthermore multi-protein complexes have been described that structurally alter chromatin in ATP-dependent processes. Apart from histone molecules many protein factors have been identified as bona fide constitutents of chromatin, although the function of most of them is only poorly understood. Our research aims to obtain a complete molecular description of natural chromatin. We are especially interested in the structural and compositional changes occuring on the chromatin level when a gene switches in its transcriptional state. Our research pursues three lines of investigations

• Analysis of chromatin structure, composition and dynamics in vivo
• Compositional, functional and structural analysis of purified natural chromatin in different functional states ex vivo
• Reconstitution of chromatin remodeling and transcription using isolated chromosomal domains and purified protein factors in vitro

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