Marcus Wilson

Investigating the reading writing and erasing of epigenetic marks.

Marcus Wilson is a Sir Henry Dale Fellow in the Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology. His research focuses on understanding how epigenetic marks are deposited, read and removed on chromatin. His group primarily use structural biology approaches such as single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and supplement this with biochemical and biophysical methods.

After Masters studies at the University of Oxford, UK, Marcus moved to the Cancer Research UK, Clare Hall laboratories in London to study for his PhD with Dr. Jesper Svejstup. Marcus then moved to a postdoctoral position with Prof. Daniel Durocher in the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum research Institute in Toronto, Canada where he began working on cryo-EM; collaborating with Dr. John Rubinstein at the SickKids Research Institute in Toronto. Marcus then gained further cryo-EM experience with Alessandro Costa at the Macromolecular Machines Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute.

portrait photo of Marcus Wilson
Marcus Wilson

Marcus joined the University of Edinburgh and the Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology in July 2018.

Susanna Alsop, Alakta Das, Gauri Deak, Charlotte Glasby, Willow Rolls, Hannah Wapenaar and James Watson


We are interested in understanding how epigenetic marks are placed, read and interpreted on chromatin. Chromatin becomes decorated with a variety of chemical tags or epigenetic marks to control the myriad of DNA-related processes in the cell. Epigenetic modifications are initially deposited by writer enzymes. These are then read and interpreted in a co-operative manner by effector proteins. Epigenetic marks can also be removed by eraser proteins resetting the system (Figure 1 A). We look at this process in the test tube by creating modified chromatin using chemical biology and biochemical methods. We then use our defined modified chromatin to study individual nucleosome-chromatin protein complexes using single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), Biochemical, Biophysical and Cell Biology approaches. 

We are particularly interested in understanding: 

  • How DNA Methylation guided by chromatin?
  • How epigentic marks foster DNA repair?
  • How chromatin is organised in diverse eukaryotes?

Schematic of the cycle of epigenetic modifications in the cell

Schematic of the cycle of epigenetic modifications in the cell. All modifications focus on the nucleosome hub, which can be modified on both the histone proteins and wrapped DNA. Example Reader, writer and eraser proteins DNA damage repair and DNA methylation pathways are labelled.

Watson JA, Alexander-Howden BK, Hall TS, Wear MA, McGhie F, Clifford G, Wapenaar H, Zou J, Adrian Bird A, Wilson MD. MeCP2 requires interactions with nucleosome linker DNA to read chromatin DNA methylation. bioRxiv

Wapenaar H, Clifford G, Rolls W, Pasquier M, Burdett H, Zhang Y, Deák G, Zou J, Spanos C, Taylor MRD, Mills J, Watson JA, Kumar D, Clark R, Das A, Valsakumar D, Bramham J, Voigt P, Sproul D, Wilson MD. The N-terminal region of DNMT3A engages the nucleosome surface to aid chromatin recruitment. EMBO Rep.

Burdett H*, Foglizzo M ¶*, Musgrove LJ, Kumar D, Clifford G, Campbell LJ, Heath GR, Zeqiraj E¶, Wilson MD¶.BRCA1-BARD1 combines multiple chromatin recognition modules to bridge nascent nucleosomes. Nucleic Acids Res. 

Deák G, Wapenaar H, Sandoval G, Chen R, Taylor MRD, Burdett H, Watson JA, Tuijtel MW, Webb S, Wilson MD. Histone divergence in trypanosomes results in unique alterations to nucleosome structure. Nucleic Acids Res

 

 


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