Home
Centre for Cancer Biomarkers CCBIO
CCBIO Seminar series

CCBIO Seminar - Cord Brakebusch

Welcome to a CCBIO seminar with speaker Cord Brakebusch from the Biotech Research and Innovation Center (BRIC), University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Title: " Epigenetic control of skin inflammation"

Main content

Where: Auditorium 4, BB-building, Jonas Lies vei 91, Bergen

When: Thursday January 31st at 14.30-15.30

The seminar is open to all interested and includes a pizza get together following the seminar. No registration needed. 

SpeakerCord Brakebusch, Biotech Research and Innovation Center (BRIC), University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Title:  Epigenetic control of skin inflammation

Abstract:

The chronic skin inflammation psoriasis is crucially dependent on the IL-23/IL-17 cytokine axis. Although IL-23 is expressed by psoriatic keratinocytes and immune cells, only the immune cell-derived IL-23 is believed to be disease relevant. Using a genetic mouse model we show now that keratinocyte-produced IL-23 is sufficient to cause a chronic skin inflammation with an IL-17 profile. Furthermore, we reveal a cell-autonomous nuclear function for the actin polymerizing molecule N-WASP, which controls IL-23 expression in keratinocytes by regulating the degradation of the histone methyltransferases G9a and GLP, and H3K9 dimethylation of the IL-23 promoter. This mechanism mediates the induction of IL-23 by TNF, a known inducer of IL-23 in psoriasis. Finally, in keratinocytes of psoriatic lesions a decrease in H3K9 dimethylation correlates with increased IL-23 expression, suggesting relevance for disease. Taken together, these data describe a molecular pathway where epigenetic regulation of keratinocytes can contribute to chronic skin inflammation.

Short bio:

Cord Brakebusch studied Biochemistry at the University of Hannover, Germany, and performed his PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel on TNF receptor signalling. During a postdoc in the lab of Reinhard Fässler at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, he became introduced into the generation and analysis of genetically modified mice, integrins, and extracellular matrix research. Research focus of the Brakebusch group is now the analysis of Rho GTPase signalling in development and disease and the improvement of CRISPR mediated gene editing. Since 2006 Cord Brakebusch is a professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he is running a research group at the Biotech Research and Innovation Center (BRIC) and is the scientific head of the Transgenic Mouse Core Facility.

Chairperson: Donald Gullberg