(Post) Graduate Course: ‘Transcription factors and transcriptional regulation’

Date:              December, 11 -13 , 2023
Location:      Wageningen Campus, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands
Language:     English
Group size:   maximum of 40 participants, if more than 40 people will apply, a selection is made
Credits:          1.0 ECTS
Fee:
€ 175 for EPS PhD students with approved TSP or postdocs registered with EPS;
€ 350 for other PhD students, postdocs and academic staff;
€ 700 for participants from the private sector.
Registration:
open

Hotel: If you would like to stay over in Wageningen, we recommend the WICC. We reserved a few single rooms incl. breakfast for the participants for the two nights from 11-13 December 2023. The price for one night is 105 € ( single room/person). Please book your room via the following website www.wicc.nl/online-boeken and use this code:437036.  If you would like to stay longer or have a double room (117,50 € per room, per night/per room) please send an email to info@wicc.nl with the following text in the subject:  Hotelkamers Course Juliane Teapal | 11 – 13 december. 

Keywords:   Transcription factors and regulatory sequences , gene regulation, gene regulatory networks, chromatin remodelling, epigenetic regulation, technology.

Organizers:  Gerco Angenent (Wageningen University) and Maike Stam (University of Amsterdam)

Contact:     Juliane Teapal

Introduction:
Gene regulation is an essential process in all organisms. Transcription of genes is tightly controlled in a temporal and spatial manner and responds to internal and external signals, such as developmental cues, temperature or pathogen attack. Eukaryotes have evolved numerous mechanisms to activate or suppress gene expression, among others by the action of specific transcription factors (TF), chromatin remodelling, histone modifications, DNA methylation, histone variants, alternative splicing, and long and small non-coding RNAs. In this EPS course, an attractive program is provided in which experts in the field will highlight and discuss different aspects of gene regulation, focussing on gene expression in plants.

Content:
In addition to lectures by experts, there will be ample opportunity for discussions during poster viewing sessions and in a literature discussion session. Furthermore, in a short computer workshop you will learn how to analyse and find TF binding sites and other regulatory sequences using ChIP-seq and other NGS data. Topics that will be addressed are as follows (preliminary schedule): Day 1: Introduction on transcriptional regulation and epigenetics, related technologies, building Gene Regulatory Networks and usage of websites for the analysis of TFs and binding sites. Day 2: Epigenetic regulation (DNA methylation, chromatin conformation and modifications). Day 3: A number of interesting lectures about plant TFs and transcriptional regulation.

The course is especially attractive for Ph.D. students, but the program will also be of interest for post-docs and senior scientists who are working in the field of gene regulation or are using related technologies.

 

Provisional Programme:

Monday, December 11     Technologies and approaches, general principles

10.00-10.05   Introduction and outline of the workshop, Instructions literature discussion

10.05-10.45   Gerco Angenent (Wageningen UR): ‘Introduction about transcription factors (TFs) and their features’

10.50-11.20   Break, poster set-up

11.25-12.05   Gerco Angenent (Wageningen UR): ‘Technologies to study TFs and their functioning’.

12.10-12.50   Lunch

12.55-13.35    Maike Stam (University of Amsterdam): ‘Introduction in epigenetic mechanisms

 13.40-14.30   Klaas Vanderpoele (VIB): “Experimental and computational mapping of gene regulatory networks”

14.35-15.35   Break and poster viewing – Posters odd numbers (room?)

15.40-17.15   Aalt-Jan van Dijk/Marian Bemer (Wageningen UR). Introduction bioinformatics practical.

 

 Tuesday, December 12  chromatin and transcription

09.00-10.20   Aalt-Jan van Dijk/Marian Bemer (Wageningen UR) Practical in database analysis, bioinformatics, cis regulatory elements and binding site analysis

10.25-11.10   Break (and poster viewing)

11.15-11.55   Maike Stam (Free University, Amsterdam): Introduction to DNA methylation: specific features and consequences.

12.00-12.40   Lunch

12.45-13.30   Jason Gardiner (Utrecht University) DNA methylation and epigenetic editing

13.35-14.20   Johan Zicola (University Göttingen, Germany): ‘Regulatory sequences  and chromosome conformation’

 14.25-15.25   Break and poster viewing even numbers

15.30-16:15   Aline Probst

16.20-17.10    Bas van Steensel (Netherlands Cancer Institute): ”Large-scale genome perturbations to study chromatin and gene regulation”

 

Wednesday, December 13 Specific talks about Transcriptional regulation       

09.00-10.05   Literature discussion in groups.

10.10-10.35   Break

10.40-11.15   Niels Aerts (UU) Networks in plant immunity

11.20-11.50   Victoria Mironova (Radboud University, Nijmegen) ‘single cell transcriptomics

11.55-12.15  Lynne Li (BMKgene) ‘Spatial transcriptomics’

12.20-13.10   Lunch, final chance poster viewing

13.15-13.50    Dolf Weijers (Wageningen UR): ‘Specificity, origin and evolution of the nuclear auxin response system’ 

 13.55-14.30   TBA

14.35-15.10   Marian Bemer (Wageningen UR) TF evolution

 15.15-15.40   Break

15.45-16.20    Richard Immink (Wageningen UR): “About chromatin, splicing and Long non-coding RNAs ”

16.25-17.00    Suzanne de Bruijn

17.00-             Closing & Drinks

 


Monday, December 11, 2023 through December 13
Registration opens soon
Wageningen Campus
Bronland 1, Wageningen