Prof. Kazufumi Mochizuki from Institute of Human Genetics (IGH) at University of Montpellier in France paid a visit to IHB on August 27, 2019. 

Prof. Kazufumi Mochizuki from Institute of Human Genetics (IGH) at University of Montpellier in France paid a visit to Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) of Chinese Academy of Sciences on August 27, 2019. During his visit, Prof. Mochizuki was invited to give a lecture entitled “Small RNA-directed DNA elimination in Tetrahymena”. 

In his presentation, Prof. Mochizuki first introduced the importance of Tetrahymena as a model organism in basic biology research. After that, he focused on the small RNA (sRNA) guided programmed DNA elimination in Tetrahymena. And explained three main question in this field: “How are scnRNAs preferentially produced from IESs at the pericentromeric region?”, “How is the homology-dependent scnRNAs degradation regulated” and “How does the secondary amplification of scnRNAs occur”. 

Researchers and students from related research group listened to the presentation carefully and had in-depth exchange with Prof. Mochizuki on issues of the key genes and regulatory mechanism of sRNA guided programmed DNA elimination. 

Prof. Mochizuki is now the group leader of Epigenetic Chromatin Regulation, Institute of Human Genetics (IGH), University of Montpellier. He earned a B. Eng. and a M. Eng. from Tokyo Institute of Technology followed by a Ph.D. from The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japan. Using the ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena as a model, his group aims to understand: how cells accumulate small RNAs specifically from TE-related sequences; how cells use those small RNAs to identify TE-related sequences; and how a small RNA pathway establishes silent chromatin environment (heterochromatin) on TE-related sequences.