

WOJCIECH SIWEK
I am an assistant professor at International Centre for Cancer Vaccine Science, University of Gdańsk, supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie global fellowship. I hold a master's degree in biotechnology from the University of Warsaw and a PhD in biochemistry from the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw. After that, I trained at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Portugal; the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, UK; and the Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
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RESEARCH
How are genes controlled?
Proper regulation of gene expression is fundamental for multicellular life. In my research, I am interested in how cells maintain active gene expression states. Preservation of gene expression can be regulated in cis, by non-diffusible stretches of DNA; or in trans by diffusible proteins capable of DNA binding. Chromatin is at the center of cis-acting feedback loops that control maintenance of silencing. Dedicated cellular machinery is employed to read and copy chromatin marks to maintain the silent state during replication and mitosis. On the other hand, mechanisms controlling maintenance of active transcription often rely on feedback loops involving trans-acting transcription factors. In these loops, induced transcription factors activate their own expression indefinitely. Trans-acting transcription factor feedback loops can maintain active states, but are not always required. This suggests that other, possibly cis-acting, processes (similar to those in silencing) are involved in preserving active transcriptional states. Strikingly, such mechanisms are poorly understood. This knowledge gap comes from the fact that uncoupling transcription factor driven expression from maintenance of expression states is difficult to achieve experimentally. I am exploring a phenomenon present in the innate immune system – transcriptional memory to accomplish such uncoupling and gain access to new cis-acting mechanisms regulating maintenance of active gene expression states. Transcriptional memory is a process during which cells exposed to a certain cue (induction) will remember the experience and respond to the second stimulation with the same signal (reinduction) more strongly. I am studying how this process is established and maintained in human cells.

FUNDING
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101025900

PUBLICATIONS
2023
STAT1 IS REQUIRED TO ESTABLISH BUT NOT MAINTAIN INTERFERON-Y-INDUCED TRANSCRIPTIONAL MEMORY
EMBO journal
2020
ACTIVATION OF CLUSTERED IFNY TARGET GENES DRIVES COHESIN-CONTROLLED TRANSCRIPTIONAL MEMORY
Molecular Cell
2019
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE AND DIRECTED EVOLUTION OF SPECIFICITY OF NLAIV RESTRICTION ENDONUCLEASE
Journal of Molecular Biology
2018
TIME-CHIP: A METHOD TO DETERMINE LONG-TERM LOCUS-SPECIFIC NUCLEOSOME INHERITANCE
Methods in Molecular Biology
2016
TYPE III CRISPR COMPLEXES FROM THERMUS THERMOPHILUS
Acta Biochimica Polonica
2014
STRUCTURAL BASIS OF THE METHYLATION SPECIFICITY OF R.DPNI
Nucleic Acids Research
2012
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE AND MECHANISM OF ACTION OF THE N6-METHYLADENINE-DEPENDENT TYPE IIM RESTRICTION ENDONUCLEASE R. DPNI
Nucleic Acids Research