Mergny, Jean-Louis - 南京大学

个人简介

Jean-Louis Mergny got his PhD in 1991 (University Paris VI) under the supervision of T. Garestier & M. Rougée (Triple-helices: spectroscopic studies) in Claude Hélène’s laboratory. He went for a postdoctoral position in Basel, Switzerland with W. Gehring (Biozentrum). Afterwards he was hired by INSERM in 1993 in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, where he worked mainly on nucleic acids structures from a biophysical point of view. He was promoted Research Director in 2002, and he joined the European Institute of Chemistry & Biology (IECB) in September 2009. Jean-Louis Mergny acts as an Associate Editor for the Elsevier journals Biochimie and Methods.

研究领域

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G-quadruplexes can be very stable under physiological conditions and the evidence for quadruplex formation in vivo is compelling: Quadruplex-specific antibodies provide strong evidence for quadruplex formation at ciliate telomeres. Radioactively labeled quadruplex ligand tends to accumulate at the termini of chromosomes (2005NARGranotier.pdf). Genome-wide analyses has implicated G4 DNA in regulation of gene transcription and recombination. G-quadruplex DNA motifs are conserved cis-regulatory elements in human and related species. Cellular effects of G4 ligands on gene expression are correlated with the G4 forming potential of genes. Intracellular formation of G-rich DNA induces the formation of “G-loops”, structures that contain G-quadruplexes, as evidenced by electron microscopy. Quadruplex ligands induce an uncapping of the telomeres. A number of cellular and viral proteins bind to, induce, cleave, or unfold quadruplexes. Sequences that are prone to form quadruplex are sites of genomic instability. G-rich oligonucleotides form quadruplexes, interact with nucleolin, and have interesting cellular and anticancer effects (a one oligonucleotide is currently in Phase II clinical trials). H.S. Seifert and colleagues have genetically defined a cis-acting G4-prone DNA sequence located near the antigenically variable pilin expression locus of the strict human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae; this region is required for the gene conversion reactions leading to pilus antigenic and phase variation.