Mechanisms Regulating Gene Expression

  • Cell and Tumor Biology
A smiling female scientist wearing a white lab coat stands in a laboratory. The background features laboratory equipment and colorful storage shelves. She appears confident and approachable, embodying a professional atmosphere.

Prof. Dr. Michaela Frye

Group Leader

Our division seeks to understand how RNA modification pathways regulate stem cell fate, and to explore whether modulation of RNA-modification pathways can help to protect from cancer.

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Our Research

The decision of stem cells to self-renew, proliferate or undergo differentiation is initiated by external stimuli that are linked to an intrinsic network of transcriptional, post-transcriptional and translational processes. RNA plays versatile roles in the transcription and translation of genes into proteins. To expand the function of an RNA molecule and to increase its capacity to encode information, each nucleobase can be chemically modified. To date over 150 chemical modifications are known in RNA. Many RNA modifications are functionally indispensable for protein translation because they regulate messenger RNA stability and splicing as well as protein translation efficiency and accuracy.
One of the most common chemical RNA modification is methylation. Cytosine-5 RNA methylation for instance, is mediated by a large group of evolutionary conserved enzymes. The correct deposition of a methyl mark at cytosines is required for normal development and aberrant RNA methylation can lead to severe human diseases. Using a combination of novel transcriptome-wide quantitative analyses and well-established mouse and human in vitro and in vivo differentiation models, our group dissects the roles of RNA methyltransferases and their methylated target RNAs in normal development, human disease and cancer.

Ultimately, this division seeks to understand how RNA modification pathways regulate stem cell fate, and to explore whether modulation of RNA-modification pathways can help to protect from cancer.

 

 

Team

Entire Team

Selected Publications

2025 - Blood

Cornelius Pauli, Michael Kienhöfer, Maximilian Felix Blank, Oguzhan Begik, Christian Rohde, Sarah Miriam Naomi Zimmermann, Laura Werner, Daniel Heid, Fu Xu, Katharina Weidenauer, Sylvain Delaunay, Nadja Krall, Katrin Trunk, Duoduo Zhao, Fengbiao Zhou, Laia Llovera, Alexane Ollivier, Anke Heit-Mondrzyk, Uwe Platzbecker, Claudia Baldus, Hubert Serve, Martin Bornhäuser, Cathrine Broberg Vågbø, Salvador Aznar Benitah, Jeroen Krijgsveld, Eva Maria Novoa, Carsten Müller-Tidow, Michaela Frye

2024 - Cell Reports

Rebecca E Wagner, Leonie Arnetzl, Thiago Britto-Borges, Anke Heit-Mondrzyk, Ali Bakr, Etienne Sollier, Nikoletta A Gkatza, Jasper Panten, Sylvain Delaunay, Daniela Sohn, Peter Schmezer, Duncan T Odom, Karin Müller-Decker, Christoph Plass, Christoph Dieterich, Pavlo Lutsik, Susanne Bornelöv, Michaela Frye

2024 - bioRxiv

Cornelius Pauli, Michael Kienhöfer, Maximilian Felix Blank, Oguzhan Begik, Christian Rohde, Daniel Heid, Fu Xu, Sarah Miriam Naomi Zimmermann, Katharina Weidenauer, Sylvain Delaunay, Nadja Krall, Katrin Trunk, Duoduo Zhao, Fengbiao Zhou, Anke Heit-Mondrzyk, Uwe Platzbecker, Claudia Baldus, Hubert Serve, Martin Bornhäuser, Cathrine Broberg Vågbø, Salvador Aznar Benitah, Jeroen Krijgsveld, Eva Maria Novoa, Carsten Müller-Tidow, Michaela Frye

2023 - Nature Reviews Genetics

Delaunay, S., Helm, M. & Frye, M.

2022 - Nature

Delaunay S., Pascual G., Feng B., Klann K., Behm M., Hotz-Wagenblatt A., Richter K., Zaoui K., Herpel E., Münch C., Dietmann S., Hess J., Benitah S.A., and Frye M

2021 - Nucleic Acids Research

Selmi T, Hussain S, Dietmann S, Heiß M, Borland K, Flad S, Carter JM, Dennison R, Huang YL, Kellner S, Bornelöv S, Frye M

2019 - Nature Cell Biology

Delaunay S and Frye M

2016 - Nature

Blanco, S., Bandiera, R., Popis, M., Hussain, S., Lombard, P., Aleksic, J., Sajini, A., Tanna, H., Cortés-Garrido, R., Gkatza, N., Dietmann, S., and Frye, M

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A smiling female scientist wearing a white lab coat stands in a laboratory. The background features laboratory equipment and colorful storage shelves. She appears confident and approachable, embodying a professional atmosphere.

Prof. Dr. Michaela Frye

Group Leader
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