The role of RNAi function and regulation in drug resistance and disease. Elizabeth (Liz) Bayne did her PhD with Prof. Sir David Baulcombe at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, focusing on the role of RNAi as an antiviral defence mechanism in plants. Prof. Sir David Baulcombe | The Sainsbury LaboratoryShe then joined the lab of Prof. Robin Allshire at the University of Edinburgh, and switched to using the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model to study how RNAi mediates genome regulation via chromatin modification. Prof. Robin Allshire After six years as a postdoc, in 2011 Liz established her own lab in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression at the University of Dundee, supported by an MRC Career Development Award. Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression Elizabeth Bayne Two years later, the award of a Chancellor’s Fellowship brought her back to Edinburgh, where her group continues to dissect mechanisms and functions of RNAi and related pathways, both in S. pombe, and more recently in other fungal models. Bayne Lab website Lab members Kundan Kumar (postdoctoral research associate), Adriana Orrego (PhD student), Sueden Oliveira De Souza (PhD student), and Finn Ritchie (PhD student) Research Our research focusses on RNA interference, a conserved regulatory mechanism mediated by small RNAs, which associate with Argonaute effector proteins to direct sequence-specific silencing of target loci. We seek to understand diverse mechanisms and functions of RNAi in genome regulation, with a focus on fungal models. In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, RNAi functions primarily to promote pericentromeric heterochromatin assembly – we have a longstanding interest in exploiting this system to elucidate mechanisms underpinning RNAi-directed chromatin modification, with a particular focus on dissecting the interplay between RNAi and other epigenetic regulators in promoting and regulating heterochromatin establishment. We are also interested in comparative analysis of RNAi function across the fungal kingdom. Cryptococcus is a globally important emerging fungal pathogen, causing over one hundred thousand deaths per year, and displaying rising resistance to available antifungal drugs. A primary role of RNAi in Cryptococcus is the silencing of transposable elements, and loss of RNAi leads to increased rates of transposon-mediated mutation that can potentiate increased virulence or drug resistance. However, how RNAi operates in Cryptococcus, a member of the little-studied basidiomycete branch of the fungal kingdom, remains poorly understood. We aim to elucidate novel aspects of RNAi function and regulation in this clinically important pathogen, including exploring roles of RNAi in fungal adaptation. Selected publications Zhang H, Kapitonova E, Orrego A, Spanos C, Strachan J, and Bayne EH (2025) Fission yeast Caprin protein is required for efficient heterochromatin establishment. PLOS Genet. 21(3):e1011620Strachan J, Leidecker O, Spanos C, Le Coz C, Chapman E, Arsenijevic A, Zhang H, Zhao N, and Bayne EH (2023) SUMOylation regulates Lem2 function in centromere clustering and silencing. J Cell Sci. 136:jcs260868.Chapman E, Taglini F, and Bayne EH (2022) Separable roles for RNAi in regulation of transposable elements and viability in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces japonicus. PLOS Genet. 18(2):e1010100.Taglini F, Chapman E, van Nues R, Theron E, and Bayne EH (2019) Mkt1 is required for RNAi-mediated silencing and establishment of heterochromatin in fission yeast. Nucleic Acids Res. gkz1157. This article was published on 2026-04-23
