Danny Chi Yeu Leung Assistant Professor

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

个人网页：

leunglab.ust.hk


研究方向：

 Mammalian genomes consist mostly of non-coding sequences. Within this massive proportion, previously misclassified as “junk DNA”, resides elements that function to regulate normal transcriptional programs. I am particularly interested in two classes of non-coding sequences: cis-regulatory elements (transcriptional promoters and enhancers) and endogenous retroviruses. The research of my laboratory focuses on dissecting how non-coding sequences are epigenetically regulated in both normal development and disease. We utilize various epigenomic and cell biology tools to delineate epigenetic pathways that modulate the activities of cis-regulatory elements and endogenous retroviruses, and their downstream effects on gene expression. Specially, I am interested in 1) elucidating the function of endogenous retroviruses in cellular differentiation during development; 2) determining the function of chromatin modifiers in progenitor and stem cells; and 3) uncovering the role of chromatin modifiers in melanomas.

近期发表论文:
        
1.Kelsey AD, Yang C, Leung D, Minks J, Dixon-McDougall T, Baldry SE, Bogutz AB, Lefebvre L, Brown CJ. Impact of flanking chromosomal sequences on localization and silencing by the human non-coding RNA XIST (2015) Genome Biology 16:208
2.Leung D, Jung I, Rajagopal N, Schmitt A, Selvaraj S, Lee AY, Yen CA, Lin S, Lin Y, Qiu Y, Xie W, Yue F, Hariharan M, Ray P, Kuan S, Edsall L, Yang H, Chi NC, Zhang MQ, Ecker JR, Ren B. Integrative analysis of haplotype-resolved epigenomes across human tissues. (2015) Nature 518, 350-354
3.Leung D, Du T, Wagner U, Xie W, Lee AY, Goyal P, Li Y, Szulwach KE, Jin P, Lorincz MC, Ren B. Regulation of DNA methylation turnover at LTR retrotransposons and imprinted loci by the histone methyltransferase Setdb1. (2014) PNAS: volume 111 no.18: 6690-6695
4.Leung D, Dong KB, Maksakova IA, Goyal P, Appanah R, Lee S, Tachibana M, Shinkai Y, Lehnertz B, Mager DL, Rossi F, Lorincz MC. Lysine methyltransferase G9a is required for de novo DNA methylation and the establishment but not maintenance of proviral silencing. (2011) PNAS: 1014660108v1-201014660.
5.Matsui T*, Leung D*, Miyashita H, Maksakova IA, Miyachi H, Kimura H, Tachibana M, Lorincz MC, Shinkai Y. Proviral silencing in embryonic stem cells require the histone methyltransferase ESET. Nature 464, 927-931 *-authors contributed equally