Research Topics
Training Areas
Education
Ph.D., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Postdoc, Rockefeller University
Biography
For more information, please visit the Ezhkova Laboratory website.
Awards
2010 - 2014
NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award (NIAMS)
2009 -
HHMI Postdoctoral Fellow
2006 - 2009
New York Stem Cell Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow
2006 - 2009
Life Sciences Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow
2005 - 2006
Women and Science Postdoctoral Fellow
2000 - 2005
Engelhorn Scholar
Research
Toward understanding the role of epigenetic regulators in control of skin stem cells
Stem cells are unique cells within a body. They are characterized by the ability to renew and to differentiate into a diverse range of specialized cell types. Although most organs and tissues have been shown to contain stem cells, skin is probably one of the most suitable mammalian systems to study stem cells.
Skin is the outermost barrier between body and environment that protects a body against infection and dehydration. During development skin and its lineages, which include the epidermis, hair follicles, and sebaceous glands, originate from a single layer of embryonic skin stem cells. Postnatally separate pools of adult stem cells that are present in hair follicles and the epidermis maintain skin during normal homeostasis and upon wounding. The availability of genetic tools to perform in vivo loss- and gain-of function studies, the existence of molecular markers of stem cells and their differentiated progenies, as well as the possibility to purify and to culture stem cells makes skin a unique model system to study stem cells.
Identification of molecular mechanisms that control the self-renewal and differentiation of stem cells is fundamentally important to understand tissue development and homeostasis as well as the progression of various tissue disorders including cancer. Increasing number of evidence has pointed to the importance of epigenetic regulators in control of these processes. Our long-term interest is to elucidate the roles of epigenetics regulators in stem cell control using skin as a model system.
We are interested: 1) to uncover whether the epigenetic machinery controls cell fate; 2) to understand how functions of epigenetic regulators in stem cell control differ between pluripotent embryonic stem cells and unipotent skin stem cells; and 3) to elucidate how changes in functions of epigenetic regulators lead to diseases and cancer.
For more information, please visit the Ezhkova Laboratory website.
Publications
Ejkova E, Tansey WP. Old dogs and new tricks: meeting on mechanisms of eukaryotic transcription. EMBO reports 2002 Mar; 3(3).
Ezhkova E, Tansey WP. Proteasomal ATPases link ubiquitylation of histone H2B to methylation of histone H3. Molecular cell 2004 Feb; 13(3).
Lee D, Ezhkova E, Li B, Pattenden SG, Tansey WP, Workman JL. The proteasome regulatory particle alters the SAGA coactivator to enhance its interactions with transcriptional activators. Cell 2005 Nov; 123(3).
Ezhkova E, Tansey WP. Chromatin immunoprecipitation to study protein-DNA interactions in budding yeast. Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) 2006; 313.
Ezhkova E, Pasolli HA, Parker JS, Stokes N, Su IH, Hannon G, Tarakhovsky A, Fuchs E. Ezh2 orchestrates gene expression for the stepwise differentiation of tissue-specific stem cells. Cell 2009 Mar; 136(6).
Silva JM, Ezhkova E, Silva J, Heart S, Castillo M, Campos Y, Castro V, Bonilla F, Cordon-Cardo C, Muthuswamy SK, Powers S, Fuchs E, Hannon GJ. Cyfip1 is a putative invasion suppressor in epithelial cancers. Cell 2009 Jun; 137(6).
Ezhkova E, Fuchs E. Regenerative medicine: An eye to treating blindness. Nature 2010 Jul; 466(7306).
Ezhkova E, Lien WH, Stokes N, Pasolli HA, Silva JM, Fuchs E. EZH1 and EZH2 cogovern histone H3K27 trimethylation and are essential for hair follicle homeostasis and wound repair. Genes & development 2011 Mar; 25(5).
Leung A, Cajigas I, Jia P, Ezhkova E, Brickner JH, Zhao Z, Geng F, Tansey WP. Histone H2B ubiquitylation and H3 lysine 4 methylation prevent ectopic silencing of euchromatic loci important for the cellular response to heat. Molecular biology of the cell 2011 Aug; 22(15).
Industry Relationships
Physicians and scientists on the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai often interact with pharmaceutical, device and biotechnology companies to improve patient care, develop new therapies and achieve scientific breakthroughs. In order to promote an ethical and transparent environment for conducting research, providing clinical care and teaching, Mount Sinai requires that salaried faculty inform the School of their relationships with such companies.
Dr. Ezhkova did not report having any of the following types of financial relationships with industry during 2012 and/or 2013: consulting, scientific advisory board, industry-sponsored lectures, service on Board of Directors, participation on industry-sponsored committees, equity ownership valued at greater than 5% of a publicly traded company or any value in a privately held company. Please note that this information may differ from information posted on corporate sites due to timing or classification differences.
Mount Sinai's faculty policies relating to faculty collaboration with industry are posted on our website at http://icahn.mssm.edu/about-us/services-and-resources/faculty-resources/handbooks-and-policies/faculty-handbook. Patients may wish to ask their physician about the activities they perform for companies.
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