Veenstra

Veenstra, Gert-Jan
Name:
Prof. Gert-Jan Veenstra

Function:
Full Professor

Theme:
Genetic & Epigenetic Pathways of Disease


Profile

The spectacular development of a single cell into a complex, multicellular organism is one of the most fascinating topics in biology. Essential for pluripotency and development is the cells' state of chromatin, how genes are marked for activation or repression by epigenetic mechanisms and the embryonic gene regulatory network. The research of the Veenstra group aims to elucidate molecular mechanisms of gene regulation during early vertebrate embryogenesis. Using Xenopus as a model system, next generation sequencing and comparative approaches, we study non-canonical mechanisms of transcription initiation and the developmental origins of embryonic chromatin state. These studies contribute to our understanding of normal and abnormal development, pluripotency and differentiation. Visit the Veenstra Lab web site  for more information.

Gert Jan Veenstra is Professor and head of the Department of Molecular Developmental Biology (Faculty of Science) and Principal Investigator of the NCMLS. He obtained his PhD in developmental biology at Utrecht University in 1996. He performed five years of postdoctoral research in epigenetics, transcription and development at the US National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD). He is a group leader in Nijmegen since 2002.

Recent key publications

  • Bogdanovic O, Long SW, van Heeringen SJ, Brinkman AB, Gómez-Skarmeta JL, Stunnenberg HG, Jones PL, Veenstra GJ. Temporal uncoupling of the DNA methylome and transcriptional repression during embryogenesis. Genome Res. 21:1313-27, 2011.

  • Akhtar W, Veenstra GJ. A paradigm of diversity in transcription initiation. Cell Biosci. 1:23, 2011.

  • van Heeringen SJ, Akhtar W, Jacobi UG, Akkers RC, Suzuki Y, Veenstra GJ. Nucleotide composition-linked divergence of vertebrate core promoter architecture. Genome Res. 21:410-21, 2011.

  • van Heeringen SJ, Veenstra GJ. GimmeMotifs: a de novo motif prediction pipeline for ChIP-sequencing experiments. Bioinformatics. 27:270-1, 2011. 

  • Marks H, Veenstra GJ, Stunnenberg HG. Insightful tales from single embryonic cells. Cell Stem Cell. 6:397-8, 2010.

  • Akkers RC, van Heeringen SJ, Jacobi UG, Janssen-Megens EM, Françoijs KJ, Stunnenberg HG, Veenstra GJ. A hierarchy of H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 acquisition in spatial gene regulation in Xenopus embryos. Dev Cell. 17:425-34, 2010.

Keywords:  Ataxia /


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