Stark Group
Alexander Stark (Group Leader)
(Email)
PostDoc positions available!
Applicants please send an email to alex.stark(at)imp.ac.at
Systems biology of regulatory motifs and networks – towards understanding gene expression from the DNA sequence
The regulation of gene expression in response to developmental or environmental stimuli is a crucial process in all organisms. Transcription is regulated by trans-acting transcription factors that recognize cis-regulatory DNA elements (CRMs or enhancers) and function in a combinatorial fashion. Enhancers retain their activity even when placed in artificial contexts (e.g. in reporter gene assays), but the exact requirements for enhancer function, i.e. a regulatory code, remains unknown and enhancer activity cannot be predicted from the DNA sequence.
Selected Publications
- He, Q., Bardet, AF., Patton, B., Purvis, J., Johnston, J., Paulson, A., Gogol, M., Stark, A., Zeitlinger, J. (2011). High conservation of transcription factor binding and evidence for combinatorial regulation across six Drosophila species. Nat Genet. 43(5):414-20 (abstract)
- Zeitlinger, J., Stark, A. (2010). Developmental gene regulation in the era of genomics. Dev Biol. 339(2):230-9 (abstract)
- Meireles-Filho, AC., Stark, A. (2009). Comparative genomics of gene regulation-conservation and divergence of cis-regulatory information. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 19(6):565-70 (abstract)
- Stark, A., Lin, MF., Kheradpour, P., Pedersen, JS., Parts, L., Carlson, JW., Crosby, MA., Rasmussen, MD., Roy, S., Deoras, AN., Ruby, JG., Brennecke, J., Hodges, E., Hinrichs, AS., Caspi, A., Paten, B., Park, SW., Han, MV., Maeder, ML., Polansky, BJ., Robson, BE., Aerts, S., van Helden, J., Hassan, B., Gilbert, DG., Eastman, DA., Rice, M., Weir, M., Hahn, MW., Park, Y., Dewey, CN., Pachter, L., Kent, WJ., Haussler, D., Lai, EC., Bartel, DP., Hannon, GJ., Kaufman, TC., Eisen, MB., Clark, AG., Smith, D., Celniker, SE., Gelbart, WM., Kellis, M. (2007). Discovery of functional elements in 12 Drosophila genomes using evolutionary signatures. Nature. 450(7167):219-32 (abstract)
- Stark, A., Brennecke, J., Bushati, N., Russell, RB., Cohen, SM. (2005). Animal MicroRNAs confer robustness to gene expression and have a significant impact on 3'UTR evolution. Cell. 123(6):1133-46 (abstract)
