Download Dr. Katja Nowick

International Research Training Group 1384
Enzymes and multienzyme complexes acting on nucleic acids
Kolloquium der International Research Training Group GRK 1384 und
der Gießener Biochemischen Institute
Seminar on Wednesday the 30th of Nov. 2011 at 4 pm Speaker: Dr. Katja Nowick
(TFome and Trancriptome Evolution, Universität Leipzig)
Title: The role of transcription factors in human evolution
Chair: Dr. Manja Marz
(Institut für Pharmazeutische Chemie, Philipps-Universität Marburg)
Venue: IMT, "Kleiner Hörsaal", Emil‐Mannkopff‐Str. 2, Marburg Guests are welcome. Coordination: Dr. Anja Drescher, Institut für Biochemie, FB 08, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 58, D-35392 Gießen,
Tel. 0641-9935412, www.uni-giessen.de/biochem/grk1384
Abstract The role of transcription factors in human evolution
Humans differ from other primates by a number of traits, for example their upright gait, their
larger brain, and their cognitive abilities. What is the molecular basis for these phenotypic
differences? Since differences in gene regulation are likely to play a major role in determining
species differences, we focused on the evolution of transcription factor (TF) genes. We
identified major changes in the repertoire of Krüppel-type zinc finger genes, the largest
mammalian TF family, between primates, including lineage specific genes, pseudogenes, and
sequence differences in the DNA-binding domain. We also discovered TFs with expression
level differences between humans and chimpanzees, among which primate-specific TFs in the
brain display the most pronounced differences. Interestingly, our computational network
analysis further revealed that orthologous and paralogous TFs quickly diverge in their coexpression network partners, suggesting that they acquire new interaction partners and target
genes. We speculate that such functional changes in TF genes are responsible for driving the
evolution of human-specific traits.
Coordination: Dr. Anja Drescher, Institut für Biochemie, FB 08, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 58, D-35392 Gießen,
Tel. 0641-9935412, www.uni-giessen.de/biochem/grk1384
Curriculum Vitae Katja Nowick
Current position:
Research group leader „TFome and Transcriptome Evolution”
University Leipzig
D-04107 Leipzig, Germany
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0341-9716684
Research fields:
Molecular primate evolution
Evolution of transcription factors and transcriptomes
Comparative gene regulatory network analysis
Functional characterization of genes in human and chimpanzee cell lines
Membership:
Since 2005
Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE)
Awarded research grants:
2011 Person exchange program ”Acções Integradas Luso-Alemãs”
DAAD and the Portuguese FCT and CRUP
“Genomic distribution of sequence and gene expression differences between
mammalian species: the importance of chromosomal rearrangements in speciation”
2010 Advanced PostDoc fellowship for a junior research group
Volkswagen foundation
“Evolutionary and functional characterization of primate transcription factors
(“TFome”)”
Academic awards:
2007 ICAM travel award to attend the “Programming for Biology” course at the Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, USA
2006 Outstanding Abstract at Biosciences Directorate Symposium, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Livermore, USA
2005 Best Poster Prize for Graduate Students at Annual Meeting of the Society for
Molecular Biology and Evolutionary (SMBE), Auckland, New Zealand
Research Experience:
2010
Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany
 Determination of RUNX1 binding site by SELEX-Seq
 Analysis of haplotype-resolved human genomes
2008 – 2009 Institute for Genomic Biology,
University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, IL, USA
 Evolutionary and functional characterization of Krüppel-type zinc
finger genes
 Transcriptome variation among human individuals
PI: Prof. Lisa Stubbs
Coordination: Dr. Anja Drescher, Institut für Biochemie, FB 08, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 58, D-35392 Gießen,
Tel. 0641-9935412, www.uni-giessen.de/biochem/grk1384
2006 – 2008 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
 Evolution of expression differences and gene regulatory networks in
primates
PI: Dr. Lisa Stubbs
2001 – 2005 Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
 Functional analysis of FOXP2 in human cell lines
 Comparison of human and chimpanzee transcriptomes
PI: Prof. Svante Pääbo
 Expression profiling during mouse brain development and
identification of candidate genes important for neurogenesis and
brain development
PI: Prof. Wieland Huttner, Dr. Lilla Farkas
2000 – 2001
Dept. of Neuroimmunological Cell Biology, Interdisciplinary Center for
Clinical Research, Leipzig, Germany
Research assistant
 Study of rat primary neurons as model to investigate Alzheimer’s
disease
PI: Prof. Gerald Münch
1999 – 2000 Dept. of Neurobiology, University Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Research assistant, diploma thesis
 Study of auditory discrimination abilities important for
understanding speech in healthy human individuals
PI: Prof. Rudolf Rübsamen
Coordination: Dr. Anja Drescher, Institut für Biochemie, FB 08, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 58, D-35392 Gießen,
Tel. 0641-9935412, www.uni-giessen.de/biochem/grk1384
Publications
Nowick, K., Warnatz, H-J., Braun, H., Haas, S., Roider, S. Erdmann, V.A., Yaspo, M-L.,
Lehrach, H., Glökler, J. Comparative SELEX-Seq: In vitro selection of transcription factor
binding sites using genomic and synthetic DNA libraries in combination with next generation
sequencing. Genome Biology in review
Nowick, K., Fields, C., Gernat, T., Caetano-Anolles, D., Kholina, N., Stubbs, L. (2011) Gain,
loss and divergence in primate zinc-finger genes: a rich resource for evolution of gene
regulatory differences between species, PLoS One 6: e21553
Suk, EK., McEwen, G.K., Duitama, J., Nowick, K., Schulz, S., Palczewski, S., Schreiber, S.,
Holloway, D., McLaughlin S., Peckham, H., Lee, C., Huebsch, T., and Hoehe, M.R. (2011) A
comprehensively molecular haplotype-resolved genome of a European individual. Genome
Research, Epub 2011/08/05
Nowick, K., Hamilton, A.T., Zhang, H., Tran-Gyamfi, M., and Stubbs, L. (2010) Rapid
sequence and expression divergence suggests selection for novel function in primate-specific
KRAB-ZNF transcription factors, Molecular Biology and Evolution
Nowick, K. and Stubbs, L. Lineage-specific Transcription Factors and the Evolution of Gene
Regulatory Networks, Briefings in Functional Genomics and Proteomics
Nowick, K., Gernat, T., Almaas, E. and Stubbs, L. (2009) Differences in human and
chimpanzee gene expression patterns define an evolving network of transcription factors in
brain, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA
Nowick, K., Huntley, S., and Stubbs, L. (2009) Rapid expansion and divergence suggest a
central and distinct role for KRAB-ZNF genes in vertebrate evolution. In Yoshida, K. (ed),
Focus on Zinc Finger Protein Research. Research Signpost, 13-29.
Farkas, L.M., Haffner, C., Giger, T., Khaitovich, P., Nowick, K., Birchmeier, C., Paabo, S.
and Huttner, W.B. (2008) Insulinoma-associated 1 has a panneurogenic role and promotes the
generation and expansion of basal progenitors in the developing mouse neocortex, Neuron,
60, 40-55.
Stroud, J.C., Wu, Y., Bates, D.L., Han, A., Nowick, K., Paabo, S., Tong, H. and Chen, L.
(2006) Structure of the forkhead domain of FOXP2 bound to DNA, Structure, 14, 159-166.
Khaitovich, P., Hellmann, I., Enard, W., Nowick, K., Leinweber, M., Franz, H., Weiss, G.,
Lachmann, M. and Paabo, S. (2005) Parallel patterns of evolution in the genomes and
transcriptomes of humans and chimpanzees, Science, 309, 1850-1854.
Coordination: Dr. Anja Drescher, Institut für Biochemie, FB 08, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 58, D-35392 Gießen,
Tel. 0641-9935412, www.uni-giessen.de/biochem/grk1384