Abstract
Established very early in human development, body weight regulation is brain-governed by the hypothalamus. Consequently, hypothalamic dysfunction leads to obesity, and therefore understanding of gene regulatory logic in this brain area is of high importance. Cellular identity is provided by the set of genes that are active, which are controlled by the epigenetic landscape of the non-coding genome. Here, we plan to reconstruct the genome wide profiles of several architectural proteins and epigenetic marks in the hypothalamus. We will use then these datasets to identify and characterise the non-coding regulatory regions of the genome that control gene activity in hypothalamus.
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