Home Department: Biology
Supported by: Stanford University Dean of Research Office
Mentor: Zhen Cheng, Radiology

Super enhancers are regions on the mammalian genome which affect the expression of more than 20 genes. Ates hypothesizes that a region of the human genome is a candidate super enhancer sequence for cardiac development that turns on multiple genes to differentiate heart progenitor cells into cardiomyocytes. Ates will implement the CRISPR-Cas 9 system to create mutant embryonic stem (ES) cell lines by knocking out this target super enhancer. By comparing the mutant cell lines to wild type, or non-mutant, ES cell lines, Ates aims to shed light on the role of this target genetic region on cardiomyocyte differentiation efficiency.

Poster presented at the Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Symposium on August 24, 2016:

Investigating Possible Super Enhancer Sequences for Cardiac Development

Gunes Ates Akgun¹, Jaecheol Lee², Ningyi Shao², Joseph Wu^2,3, Zhen Cheng³
[Departments of Biology¹, Cardiology², and Radiology³, Stanford University]