With more of 40 % of the total weight, muscles are very important part of the body. Each muscle consists of a variety of specialised fibres that allows the muscles to perform their diverse functional tasks. In addition, several other cell types are found in the tissue, such as nerve and immune cell. The muscle fibres make up a very special class of cells which are both multi nuclear and up to several decimetres in length. The composition of fibre types is important for the physiological properties of the muscle. The fibres are plastic and can change properties in response to variation in neural signal, loading condition or hormonal signals. The alteration can change the metabolic profile, size and other properties of the muscles. It is known that a group of myogenic transcriptions factors along with their interaction partners are central to the change in phenotype and function. However, due to the nature of the fibres and the heterogeneity of the muscle tissue, the information on how the factors contribute to the change in muscle function and physiology are sparse.
Recently, our group have overcome these issues by developing a novel method to identify the muscle specific nuclei (see figure).
Using our new method, the candidate will investigate and explore how the transcription factors are contributing to the change in the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms during exercise and disease induced muscle wasting.
Some of the methods you will learn: real time qPCR, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), Western blotting, cell sorting, flow cytometry, cell culture, luciferase assay and cloning.
The project will be performed at the Section of Physiology and Cell Biology in the laboratory of Professor Kristian Gundersen. The candidate will be supervised on a by Mads Bengtsen and Kristian Gundersen.