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2022-06-16Wei Xie、Lei LiWei Xie’s group and Lei Li’s group published research in Nature Cell Biology on Ultrasensitive Ribo-seq reve...

Wei Xie’s group and Lei Li’s group published research in Nature Cell Biology on Ultrasensitive Ribo-seq reveals translational landscapes during mammalian oocyte-to-embryo transition and pre-implantation development. Translation plays a key role in gene expression regulation and development. During mammalian oocyte maturation and early embryonic development, transcription is largely silenced from the full-grown oocyte until zygotic genome activation (ZGA). Therefore, during the oocyte-to-embryo transition (OET), translational regulation plays important roles in meiotic resumption, fertilization, and ZGA. However, translational studies in mammalian oocytes and pre-implantation em...
2022-02-26Jun-Jie Gogo LiuJun-Jie Gogo Liu group and Jennifer Doudna group develop a highly efficient mini-CRISPR gene editing tool

Jun-Jie Gogo Liu group and Jennifer Doudna group develop a highly efficient mini-CRISPR gene editing tool The programmability of CRISPR systems holds tremendous potential as transformative tools for genome or epic-genome editing. After years of effort, only a few types of CRISPR-Cas nucleases have been widely used for efficient genome editing, such as Cas9 and Cas12a. While efficient for genome editing, the large size of Cas9 and Cas12a (1,000-1,500 amino acids (aa)) precludes their ability to be delivered via adeno-associated virus (AAV), which is useful for therapeutic delivery but has a limited transgene size of just 4.7 kilobase pairs (kbp). Also, most Cas9 and Cas12a nucleas...
2021-12-24Wei XieWei Xie’s group published research on the role of DNA methylation inheritance and enhancer dememorization to ...

Wei Xie’s group published research on the role of DNA methylation inheritance and enhancer dememorization to safeguard early embryonic development Prof. Wei Xie’s group at School of Life Science, Tsinghua University published research in Science Advances on December 22, 2021, entitled “Methylome inheritance and enhancer dememorization reset an epigenetic gate safeguarding embryonic programs”. Their findings not only greatly deepen our fundamental understanding on how DNA methylation regulates early embryonic development in zebrafish, but also shed light on why post-fertilization global DNA methylation reprogramming is present in mammals, but is absent in non-mammalian vertebrate...
2021-11-26Wei Xie’s group, Yong Guo’s group, and Wei Li’s group published research in Science Advances on evolutionar...

Wei Xie’s group, Yong Guo’s group, and Wei Li’s group published research in Science Advances on evolutionary analyses in epigenetic reprogramming in early mammalian development A joint team led by Prof. Wei Xie from Tsinghua University, Prof. Yong Guo from Beijing University of Agriculture, and Prof. Wei Li from Institute of Zoology at Chinese Academy of Sciences, has systematically studied the evolutionary conservation of epigenetic transmission and reprogramming among five species during mammalian early development. Their findings, published in Science Advances on November 24, 2021, not only greatly deepen our fundamental understanding on how the life clock is reset thro...
2020-10-29Wei XieWei Xie’s group published research in Nature on RNA Pol II mediated transcription onset during mammalian zygo...

Wei Xie’s group published research in Nature on RNA Pol II mediated transcription onset during mammalian zygotic genome activation Prof. Wei Xie’s group at School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University published research in Nature on October 28, 2020, entitled “The landscape of RNA Pol II binding reveals a step-wise transition during ZGA”, revealing the activation of the zygotic genome by RNA polymerase II (Pol II) through stepwise transition. This study not only helps us to understand the fundamental mechanism underlying the onset of zygotic genome activation (ZGA), the first transcription event in life, but may also pave the way for future clinical research on early developm...
2020-07-23Wei XieWei Xie’s group and Bing Zhu’s group published research in Nature Genetics on the mechanisms underlying robu...

Wei Xie’s group and Bing Zhu’s group published research in Nature Genetics on the mechanisms underlying robust-yet-flexible DNA methylation inheritance A joint team led by Dr. Wei Xie from School of Life Sciences of at Tsinghua University and Dr. Bing Zhu from Institute of Biophysics at Chinese Academy of Sciences, has revealed how the DNA methylome is stably inherited despite constant epigenetic drift. Their study, titled “Imprecise DNMT1 activity coupled with neighbor-guided correction enables robust yet flexible epigenetic inheritance”, is published in Nature Genetics on July 20, 2020. The research team show that epigenetic drift during cell proliferation in part is due to...
2019-09-11Yulong LiProfessor Yulong Li’s group and their collaborators reported the molecular mechanisms causing cholestatic itc...

Professor Yulong Li’s group and their collaborators reported the molecular mechanisms causing cholestatic itch We are pleased to announce the publication of a recent paper by Prof. Yulong Li’s research group at the School of Life Sciences, Peking University, in collaboration with Wenqin Luo’s research group at University of Pennsylvania on September 10th, 2019. The paper, “MRGPRX4 is a Bile Acid Receptor for Human Cholestatic Itch” was published in eLife and is available online here. In this paper, the authors suggested a molecular mechanism for cholestatic itch by indicating the role of an orphan GPCR. Patients with cholestatic liver diseases tend to experience itchy ...
2019-08-06Prof. Fang Fang’s group combined EEG and tACS to investigate the role of alpha oscillations in feature bindin...

Prof. Fang Fang’s group combined EEG and tACS to investigate the role of alpha oscillations in feature binding On August 5, 2019, a paper entitled “The causal role of alpha oscillations in feature binding” was online published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America by Prof. Fang Fang’s research group at the School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences at Peking University, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences and the PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research. This study for the first time, provided strong evidence of the causal role of alpha oscillations in feature binding, especially in active feature binding, which reveal...
2019-08-05Fang Fang/Yi Rao Genetic analysis of human contour integration by the laboratories of Fang Fang and Yi Rao

Genetic analysis of human contour integration by the laboratories of Fang Fang and Yi Rao On July 30th, 2019, a paper entitled “Heritability of human visual contour integration — an integrated genomic study” was published in European Journal of Human Genetics by the laboratories of Professors Fang Fang and Yi Rao at Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences and the PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research. This paper reports their investigations of the genetic basis of visual contour integration by using the genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) technique. Dr. Zijian Zhu and Dr. Biqing Chen from Yi Rao’s lab and Dr. Ren Na from Fang Fang’s lab are the co-first authors. ...
2019-07-05Wei XieWei Xie’s group, Ying-pu Sun/Jiawei Xu’s group published research in Science on the reprogramming of histone...

Wei Xie’s group, Ying-pu Sun/Jiawei Xu’s group published research in Science on the reprogramming of histone modifications in human early development Fig. The model of reprogramming of histone modifications in human early development A joint team led by Prof. Wei Xie at Tsinghua University and Prof. Ying-pu Sun/Jiawei Xu from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, revealed how histone modifications are reprogrammed during human early development. Their findings are published in Science on July 4, 2019 as a research article entitled “Resetting histone modifications during human parental-to-zygotic transition”. This work not only uncovered unique states in pa...
2018-11-30Yijun QiDr. Yijun Qi’s group reports global identification of long noncoding RNAs and the regulation of MAF4 by a nat...

Dr. Yijun Qi’s group reports global identification of long noncoding RNAs and the regulation of MAF4 by a natural antisense RNA in Arabidopsis On November 29, 2018, Dr. Yijun Qi’s group from the Center for Life Sciences at Tsinghua University published a research article in Nature Communications, reporting global identification of long noncoding RNAs and the regulation of MAF4 by a natural antisense RNA in Arabidopsis. In the last few years，massive transcriptome sequencing has revealed that over 75% of the human genome and over 50% of the Arabidopsis genome are transcribed, but many transcripts are not translated into proteins. Transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides that...
2018-09-25Genetic Analyses of Perceptual Rivlary

Genetic Analyses of Perceptual Rivlary What do you see in this picture? A vase or two faces? After a period of time, you will find that sometimes you see a white vase in the middle and sometimes you see two black faces on the sides. The image you see will switch spontaneously between the vase and the faces, but at any given moment, you can only see one of them. This switching is neither due to changes of the image, nor due to changes in your eyes because the physical stimuli received by the retina is constant. How does this switching happen? The simple answer is that it is your brain: it is the perception by the brain that switches. This interesting visual cognition phenomen...
2018-08-30Multi-level genomic analyses suggest new genetic variants involved in human memory

Multi-level genomic analyses suggest new genetic variants involved in human memory Memory is an important cognitive function for human beings. External information enters the brain by the perception system, and is encoded, processed, and stored by the memory system to become an individual's knowledge experience. Therefore, to a large extent, memory defines an individual. Previous studies have explored the genetic basis of memory through twin studies and family analysis. It is generally accepted that both short-term and long-term memories are moderately heritable. The heritability is 15%~72% for short-term memory (1-3), while 37%~55% for long-term memory (4). In recent years, with the ...
2018-05-06wei XieWei Xie’s group, Yingpu Sun’s group and Jie Na’s group published research in Nature on chromatin regulation...

By investigating the dynamics of chromatin states during human embryo development, a team led by two groups in Tsinghua University (Wei Xie’s group from CLS and Jie Na’s group from School of Medicine) in close collaboration with Yingpu Sun’s group from the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, has revealed the dynamic chromatin reprogramming process during human preimplantation embryo development. Their findings, published in Nature on May 3rd, 2018, not only advanced the understanding of chromatin reprogramming in human early embryo development, but also provided molecular framework for future studies on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and related human diseases....
2017-02-25Yijun QIA new mechanism for diRNA mediated DSB repair

A new mechanism for diRNA mediated DSB repair A research article entitled “IDN2 interacts with RPA and facilitates DNA double-strand break repair by homologous recombination in Arabidopsis” was published online in The Plant Cell on Feb. 21st, 2017. This work is from Prof. Yijun Qi’s group in the Center for Life Science. In this work, Prof. Qi and colleagues reported that IDN2, a dsRNA-binding protein, interacts with RPA and facilitates the release of RPA from ssDNA tails and subsequent recruitment of RAD51 at DSB sites to promote double-strand break (DSB) repair. DSB, as the most detrimental form of DNA damage, would lead to gene mutation, genome instability and even cell death, i...
2016-03-18Xiaohua SHENXiaohua Shen’s group reported a general theme of RNA-mediated transcription regulation

Xiaohua Shen’s group reported a general theme of RNA-mediated transcription regulation Published online in Cell Stem Cell on March 17, 2016, the research team led by Dr. Xiaohua Shen from Center for Life Sciences reported a prevalent phenomenon of RNA-mediated transcription regulation on nearby genes. Web link for this paper : http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(16)00062-X Although it is believed that proteins are the major executors of cellular and organism functions, metazoans have a relatively common set of protein-coding genes despite different genome sizes and developmental complexity. In fact, only 1.5% of the human genome encodes pr...
2015-09-15Chengqi YiBisulfite-free, base-resolution analysis of 5-formylcytosine at whole-genome scale

Center of Life Sciences' research team lead by Dr. Chengqi Yi published their work entitled "Bisulfite-free, base-resolution analysis of 5-formylcytosine at the genome scale" in Nature Methods on September 7th, 2015. In this study, the team reported fC-CET—a selective chemical labelling and pull-down method—to identify the genome-wide, base-resolution 5-formylcytosine (5fC) DNA modification in mouse embryonic stem cells. Discovery of the ten-eleven translocation (TET)-dependent generation and removal of oxidized derivatives of 5mC, namely, 5hmC, 5fC and 5caC, revealed a new paradigm of active DNA demethylation in mammalian genomes. A major challenge is the lack ...
2015-06-30Hang ZhangHow the Brain may Simplify Probabilistic Calculations Inherent in Motor Planning

Hang Zhang at Department of Psychology, McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Center for Life Sciences at Peking University and her collaborators, Nathaniel D. Daw and Laurence T. Maloney at New York University, have recently published a paper on Nature Neuroscience titled ‘Human representation of visuo-motor uncertainty as mixtures of orthogonal basis distributions’. They prove for the first time that human representation of probabilistic information is not—as widely presumed—continuous, but discrete. No matter how carefully we plan an action, what we do may differ from what we planned to do. We may aim to pick up a glass of water—and instead knock it into a friend’s lap. In ...
2015-06-22The Transcriptome and DNA Methylome Landscapes of Human PGCs published in CELL jointly by Prof. Fuchou Tang’s...

On June 4th, 2015, a paper entitled ‘The Transcriptome and DNA Methylome Landscapes of Human Primordial Germ Cells’ was published in CELL as a cover story from Fuchou Tang’s and Jie Qiao’s groups at Peking University. In this study, the transcriptome as well as DNA methylome of human PGCs from multiple developmental stages were analyzed at single-cell and single-base resolutions, respectively. And the researchers found that human PGCs showed unique features very different from mouse PGCs. Human primordial germ cells (PGCs) are the embryonic founder cells of the mature gametes- the oocytes and sperms. The mature gametes are vital for transmitting both genetic an...
2015-06-18Chengqi YiChemical Pull-Down Reveals Dynamic Pseudouridylation of the Mammalian Transcriptome

Chemical Pull-Down Reveals Dynamic Pseudouridylation of the Mammalian Transcriptome Center of Life Sciences' research team lead by Dr. Chengqi Yi published their work entitled "Chemical Pull-Down Reveals Dynamic Pseudouridylation of the Mammalian Transcriptome " in Nature Chemical Biology on June 15th, 2015. In this study, the team reported CeU-Seq—a selective chemical labelling and pull-down method—to identify the transcriptome-wide, base-resolution pseudouridine (Y) RNA modification profiles within human cells and mouse tissues. More than 100 different types of post-transcriptional modifications to RNA molecules have been characterized so far. Among t...

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