Summary
This research project investigates the post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms that drive rapid decay of oscillatory gene transcripts and identifies key targets of core Hes/Her oscillators, focusing on their role in developmental processes like somitogenesis.
What they want
The project explores biological oscillators, including circadian and ultradian clocks, which regulate dynamic molecular and morphological processes such as root branching, molting, mitosis, stem cell maintenance, and tissue patterning during somitogenesis. It specifically focuses on the segmentation clock in the presomitic mesoderm (PSM), controlled by a self-sustaining negative feedback loop involving Hes/her gene family transcriptional repressors. The research aims to understand how transcriptional and translational time delays and degradation rates influence clock period. The two key questions addressed are: (1) What are the key targets of the core Hes/Her oscillators that carry out oscillatory output? and (2) What are the post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms driving rapid decay of oscillatory gene transcripts?
