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About

Our research aims to understand the complex epigenetic circuitry that underlies immune cell function, which should lead to therapies designed to rewire lymphocytes, as new treatments for infection or allergy.

Epigenetic modifications to chromatin may promote immune cell phenotypic stability by influencing the ability of transcription factors to bind to DNA and affecting whether and to what level specific genes are expressed in a cell. However, we are only at the tip of the iceberg in our understanding of how these processes affect lymphocyte fate.

We use a multi-disciplinary approach that combines gene-deficient models, biochemistry and contemporary molecular techniques to develop a fundamental understanding of the chromatin architecture and epigenetic networks that control important steps of immune cell differentiation during development, allergy and infection.

Publications

Selected publications from A/Prof Rhys Allan

Lou J, Deng Q, Zhang X, Bell CC, Das AB, Bediaga NG, Zlatic CO, Johanson TM, Allan RS, Griffin MDW, Paradkar P, Harvey KF, Dawson MA, Hinde E. Heterochromatin protein 1 alpha (HP1α) undergoes a monomer to dimer transition that opens and compacts live cell genome architecture. Nucleic Acids Research. 2024;52(18):10.1093/nar/gkae720

Keenan CR, Coughlan HD, Iannarella N, del Fierro AT, Keniry A, Johanson TM, Chan F, Garnham AL, Whitehead LW, Blewitt ME, Smyth GK, Allan RS. Suv39h-catalyzed H3K9me3 is critical for euchromatic genome organization and the maintenance of gene transcription. Genome Research. 2024;34(4):10.1101/gr.279119.124

Milevskiy MJG, Coughlan HD, Kane SR, Johanson TM, Kordafshari S, Chan F, Tsai M, Surgenor E, Wilcox S, Allan RS, Chen Y, Lindeman GJ, Smyth GK, Visvader JE. Three-dimensional genome architecture coordinates key regulators of lineage specification in mammary epithelial cells. Cell Genomics. 2023;3(11):10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100424

Chan F, Coughlan HD, Ruhle M, Iannarella N, Alvarado C, Groom JR, Keenan CR, Kueh AJ, Wheatley AK, Smyth GK, Allan RS, Johanson TM. Survey of activation‐induced genome architecture reveals a novel enhancer of Myc. Immunology and Cell Biology. 2023;101(4):10.1111/imcb.12626

Zhang S, Rautela J, Bediaga NG, Kolesnik TB, You Y, Nie J, Dagley LF, Bedo J, Wang H, Sun L, Sutherland R, Surgenor E, Iannarella N, Allan R, Souza-Fonseca-Guimaraes F, Xie Y, Wang Q, Zhang Y, Xu Y, Nutt SL, Lew AM, Huntington ND, Nicholson SE, Chopin M, Zhan Y. CIS controls the functional polarization of GM-CSF-derived macrophages. Cellular & Molecular Immunology. 2023;20(1):10.1038/s41423-022-00957-z

Chan WF, Coughlan HD, Chen Y, Keenan CR, Smyth GK, Perkins AC, Johanson TM, Allan RS. Activation of stably silenced genes by recruitment of a synthetic de-methylating module. Nature Communications. 2022;13(1):10.1038/s41467-022-33181-4

Johanson TM, Allan RS. Parsing the transcription factors governing T cell immunity. Nature Immunology. 2022;23(1):10.1038/s41590-021-01075-0

Johanson TM, Allan RS. In Situ HiC. Methods in Molecular Biology. 2022;2458:10.1007/978-1-0716-2140-0_18

Carrington EM, Louis C, Kratina T, Hancock M, Keenan CR, Iannarella N, Allan RS, Wardak AZ, Czabotar PE, Herold MJ, Schenk RL, White CA, D’Silva D, Yang Y, Wong W, Wong H, Bryant VL, Huntington ND, Rautela J, Sutherland RM, Zhan Y, Hansen J, Nhu D, Lessene G, Wicks IP, Lew AM. BCL-XL antagonism selectively reduces neutrophil life span within inflamed tissues without causing neutropenia. Blood Advances. 2021;5(11):10.1182/bloodadvances.2020004139

Hogg SJ, Motorna O, Cluse LA, Johanson TM, Coughlan HD, Raviram R, Myers RM, Costacurta M, Todorovski I, Pijpers L, Bjelosevic S, Williams T, Huskins SN, Kearney CJ, Devlin JR, Fan Z, Jabbari JS, Martin BP, Fareh M, Kelly MJ, Dupéré-Richer D, Sandow JJ, Feran B, Knight D, Khong T, Spencer A, Harrison SJ, Gregory G, Wickramasinghe VO, Webb AI, Taberlay PC, Bromberg KD, Lai A, Papenfuss AT, Smyth GK, Allan RS, Licht JD, Landau DA, Abdel-Wahab O, Shortt J, Vervoort SJ, Johnstone RW. Targeting histone acetylation dynamics and oncogenic transcription by catalytic P300/CBP inhibition. Molecular Cell. 2021;81(10):10.1016/j.molcel.2021.04.015

Lab research projects

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