PROJECT
SUPERVISORS

Project Supervisor

Peter Tessarz

Background

I am a biochemist by training and have long been fascinated by molecular events that govern cell biology and physiology. After my studies at the Universities Bochum and Witten/Herdecke in Germany and two extended research stays at Duke University and Karolinska, I moved to Heidelberg for my graduate work with Bernd Bukau to investigate how protein quality control is maintained during stress and ageing.

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For my postdoc I joined the group of Tony Kouzarides at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, where I characterised a novel type of histone modification, which turned out to be important for the transcriptional regulation of rRNA. In 2014, I started my own group at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, where I combined my interest in ageing research and chromatin-based control of transcription. In 2023 and after almost nine years in Cologne, I moved a bit further up the Rhine to join the Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

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Research

Research in our group is aimed towards understanding fundamental questions regarding the regulation of gene expression by chromatin architecture, the impact of cellular metabolism and the (micro)environment on the formation of chromatin states and transcriptional variability. We are particularly intrigued by decision-making processes of cells during differentiation and and would like to understand how the metabolism-epigenetics axis is involved in this process.

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To address these questions, we mainly make use of tissue, biopsies and stem cell models to dissect the connection between metabolism and epigenetics on a mechanistic level using biochemical, cell biological and deep-sequencing approaches, including spatial and single-cell resolution technologies. A long-term goal of our research is to identify pathways within the metabolism-epigenetics axis that can be exploited for interventions to positively impact disease outcome and/or ageing.

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Publications

Pouikli A, Parekh S, Maleszewska M, Baghdadi M, Tripodi I, Nikopoulou C, Folz-Donahue K, Hinze Y, Mesaros A, Giavalisco P, Dowell R, Partridge L, Tessarz P (2021): Chromatin remodeling due to degradation of citrate carrier impairs osteogenesis of aged mesenchymal stem cells. Nature Aging 1, 810–825; DOI: 10.1038/s43587-021-00105-8

Bozukova M, Nikopoulou C, Kleinenkuhnen N, Grbavac D, Götsch K and Tessarz P (2022). Aging is associated with increased chromatin accessibility and reduced polymerase pausing in liver. Mol. Syst. Biol., 18:e11002; DOI: 10.15252/msb.202211002

Gehling K, Parekh S, Schneider F, Kirchner M, Kondylis V, Nikopoulou C and Tessarz P (2022): RNA-sequencing of single cholangiocyte-derived organoids reveals high organoid-to organoid variability. Life Sci. Alliance 5 (12), e202101340; DOI: 10.26508/lsa.202101340

Pouikli A, Maleszewska M, Parekh S, Yang M, Nikopoulou C, Bonfiglio JJ, Mylonas C, Sandoval T, Schumacher A-L, Hinze Y, Matic I, Frezza C and Tessarz P (2022). Hypoxia promotes osteogenesis via regulating the acetyl-CoA-mediated mito-nuclear communication. EMBO J, 41:e111239; DOI: 10.15252/embj.2022111239

Nikopoulou C, Kleinenkuhnen N, Parekh S, Sandoval T, Ziegenhain C, Schneider F, Giavalisco P, Donahue KF, Vesting AJ, Kirchner M, Bozukova M, Vossen C, Altmüller J, Wunderlich T, Sandberg R, Kondylis V, Tresch A, Tessarz P (2023). Spatial and single-cell profiling of the metabolome, transcriptome and epigenome of the aging mouse liver. Nature Aging 3, 1430–1445; DOI: 10.1038/s43587-023-00513-y