University of California, Irvine
United States

Biography

Dr. Kyoko Yokomori is a Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry in School of Medicine at University of California, Irvine. Her background is in veterinary pathology, molecular virology, and eukaryotic RNA transcription. Her research focus is to understand how chromatin structure influences gene transcription and DNA repair, and how their dysregulation contributes to human diseases, using molecular biology, biochemistry, fluorescent cell imaging and genomics techniques. Using laser microirradiation, her team uncovered the damage-type specific recruitment and functions of cohesion-SA2 and condensin I, and the role of PARP1 signaling in metabolic response critical for damaged cancer cell survival. Her team also investigates the mechanism of facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD), a human muscular dystrophy associated with epigenetic abnormality. Her laboratory was the first to identify specific loss of histone H3 lysine 9 trimethylation (H3K9me3)-containing heterochromatin that contributes to derepression of the pathogenic gene. More recently, her team uncovered heterogeneity of FSHD patient myotubes using single cell/nucleus analyses and is continuing to examine the disease state of FSHD myocytes.

Fields of Interest

• Epigenetics and Epigenomics
• DNA Damage Signaling
• Complex DNA Damage
• PARP Signaling
• Laser Microirradiation
• FSHD
• 3D Chromatin Structure
• Cohesins and Condensins