Transposable elements

An early-career, career-development researcher position in Anna Runemark's lab (Speciation, Adaptation and Co-Evolution, Lund University), within the Swedish Research Council project "The role of novel patterns of gene expression in hybrid adaptation". The research asks how structural variants, especially copy number variation (CNV), contribute to novel and potentially adaptive gene expression in hybrids. The lab is collecting data on yeast hybrids and their founder strains under several stress conditions and after induced rounds of meiosis. The researcher will analyse CNVs and their genomic p

…function, ranging from missing elements to genomic rearrangements that alter regulatory contacts. Transposable elements are discussed as contributors to the evolution of gene regulation.

Transposable elements, known colloquially as ‘jumping genes’, constitute approximately 45% of the human genome. Cells utilize epigenetic defenses to limit transposable element jumping, including formation of silencing heterochromatin and generation of piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), small RNAs that facilitate clearance of transposable element transcripts. We have utilized fruit flies, mice and postmortem human brain samples to identify transposable element dysregulation as a key mediator of neuronal death in tauopathies, a group of neurodegenerative disorders that are pathologically characteri