100-word biography: | Fumihito Miura was born in Aomori prefecture, the most northern part of Honshu island, Japan, in 1974. After graduating from a local high school, he moved to Tokyo to study chemistry at Tokyo University of Science and graduated in 1998. During the undergraduation, he worked at a hospital as a part-time technician, and where he became familiar with molecular biology. To study molecular biology further, he moved to the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo. His mentors were famous Japanese genome scientists Yoshiyuki Sakaki and Takashi Ito. Since then, his focus has been on developing technologies for genome-scale measurement. |
Abstract: | Epigenomes form the basis of gene expression. Nucleosome positioning, histone post-translational modifications, transcription factor bindings, and DNA methylation have been well documented for their strong association with gene expression. These epigenetic modifications, except DNA methylation, are currently detected by DNA fragmentation-based methods. The most common technique for identifying the epigenetic state of chromatin is chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP). In the ChIP assay, the chromatin is first fragmented, the target epigenome is enriched with a specific antibody, and the collected DNA around the epigenome is sequenced using Illumina's short-read sequencer. Recently, DNA sequencing technology has been advancing. Especially, the advent of palm-size sequencers developed by Oxford nanopore technologies (ONT) is transforming the world of DNA-sequencing-based techniques. The most distinct specificities of the devices are long-read sequencing and direct detection of DNA modifications. Therefore, to fully utilize the superior abilities of the new sequencer, the epigenomes should be detected without DNA fragmentation. However, for the realization of such measurement, a new principle should be devised. To this end, we are developing a new DNA methyltransferase-based epigenome quantitation technology termed proximity DNA methylation (PDM). In PDM, DNA methyltransferases are anchored on the chromatin via the specificities of antibodies for the target epigenomes. Thus, the DNA methyltransferases would introduce a methyl moiety to the DNA around the epigenomes, which enables the detection of target epigenome in the form of DNA methylation. In this presentation, I would like to show you the current state of the development. |