General information
Host: Laboratory for Environmental and Life Science, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia
Supervisor: Matteo De March
Title: Understanding the role of HLTF SNF2 DNA-translocase in cancer
Description: HLTF-deficient cells are vulnerable to replication stress and loss of HLTF function promotes cancerogenesis in different type of cells (Dhont et al 2016). In particular, HLTF promoter hypermethylation is detected in 40% of colorectal cancers (CRC) and associates with very-low overall survival (OS) (Philipp et al. 2012). CRC is the second most common cancer in women and the third most common in men. HLTF is considered an oncosuppressor and plays in the context of DNA damage tolerance (DDT) pathway (Branzei et al. 2016) to prevent excessive degradation at stalled forks (Poole et al. 2017). This study aims at predicting the specific HLTF protein network pattern in cancer cells and tissues and their expression profile in order to depict the molecular basis of the DNA repair process malfunctions. The results will provide a better understanding of the role of this oncosuppressor in the pathological cellular milieu that represents open question to date.
The position covers 6 to 9 months of work, with possibility to extend the period to max 12 months and it is intended for a MSc/PhD student with biology background and strong interest for bioinformatics and computational analysis. He/she will focus in particular on (but not limited to) differential gene expression profiling, interactome studies and protein sequence-structure prediction. Knowledge of Pyton/R or experience in handling big-data would be an advantage.
