ATPBone - Fighting osteoporosis by blocking nucleotides: purinergic signalling in bone formation and homeostasis

Abstract:

Osteoporosis is a disabling disease and the incidence is expected to increase Neural stem cells (NSCs) have emerged as a major topic in neurobiology. The persistence of multipotent cells in the adult mammalian brain offers a realistic chance for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. It is thus crucial to understand NSCs from as many as possible angles (e. g. cellular and molecular biology), in order to better isolate and successfully manipulate them.

CISSTEM presents a post-genomic systems biology approach, taking advantage of new computational and experimental tools to address the specification and maintenance of NSCs at the transcriptional/epigenetic level. CISSTEM is designed to unravel the basic principles of gene regulation in NSC, with a focus on cis-regulatory modules (CRMs). To do so we follow a multidisciplinary approach tightly interconnecting computational prediction and experimental validation in vitro and in vivo using different vertebrate models systems. Major intermediate objectives of this project are the prediction of relevant elements and the identification of the temporal, spatial and quantitative activities of predicted conserved regulatory motifs associated with NSC expressed genes.