{"id":1064,"date":"2015-02-20T20:12:25","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T20:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/avada.theme-fusion.com_demos\/law\/?page_id=12"},"modified":"2025-07-24T13:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T18:12:11","slug":"research-interests","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/qiao-lab\/research-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Interests"},"content":{"rendered":"

RESEARCH\u00a0INTERESTS<\/h2>\n<\/div>
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1. 4D (3D spatial + 1D temporal) meiotic genomes in spermatocytes and oocytes<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Chromosome conformation and organization impact many cell functions, including transcription, homologous chromosome pairing, and chromosome segregation. Understanding the chromosome architecture and dynamics is critical for developing effective strategies to cure human diseases, such as cancer, miscarriage, infertility, and birth defects. Our vision is to establish a new paradigm and open up new avenues of investigation into the poorly understood physical and conformational aspects of mitotic and meiotic chromosomes. Globally, individualized and compacted chromosomes provide a structural basis for the pairing and segregation of homologous chromosomes. Locally, chromatin organizations, topological associating domains (TADs) and pair-wise-chromatin-loop interactions, regulate meiotic transcription. Another larger chromatin domain, compartment, is associated with meiotic recombination. It remains unknown how the conformational changes of meiotic chromosomes impact meiotic chromosome pairing, recombination, segregation, and transcription. This project aims to understand: 1. how meiotic chromatin fibers fold into rod-like chromosomes; 2. how these dynamic conformational changes regulate transcription, facilitate homologous chromosome pairing and segregation.<\/p>\n

We utilized four approaches to investigate meiotic chromosomes:<\/p>\n