Joe Ogas

Title:

Professor and Head

PhD Granting Institution:

University of California San Francisco

Contact:

Email Address: ogas@purdue.edu
Office Phone: 765-496-3969
Lab Website Link: https://ag.purdue.edu/department/biochem/directory.html#/ogas

Primary Training Group:

Plant Biology

Secondary Training Groups:

Cancer Biology

Research Areas:

We use Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system to examine mechanisms of homeostasis of chromatin-based features and the resulting contribution to differentiation and development.

Current Projects:

We are characterizing the contribution of the CHD chromatin remodeling factor PICKLE (PKL) to homeostasis of the histone modification H3K27me3. H3K27me3 is an epigenetic mark that plays a critical role in chromatin-based transcriptional repression of genes involved in differentiation and development in both plants and animals. Despite conservation of a variety of factors, homeostasis of H3K27me3 appears to be distinct in plants and animals. In particular, H3K27me3-enriched chromatin in plants is also enriched for the histone variant H2A.Z, which is typically associated with dynamic properties for chromatin. We have previously shown that the CHD remodeler PKL contributes to H3K27me3 homeostasis. Intriguingly, CHD remodelers have undergone a plant-specific expansion, raising the possibility that some of these plant CHD proteins have chromatin remodeling activities that are distinct from animal CHD proteins. We are using biochemical, genome-based, and genetic approaches to characterize the contribution of PKL and other factors to chromatin homeostasis and to further elucidate the relationship between H2A.Z and H3K27me3 in plants.