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Contact Details

Phone
+64 3 479 9190
Email
jisha.antony@otago.ac.nz
Position
Senior Research Fellow
Department
Department of Pathology (Dunedin)
Research summary
Chromatin organisation in cancer

Research

My research focuses on understanding how leukaemia associated mutations in chromatin organisers such as cohesin, impacts chromatin folding or causes translocations such as RUNX1-RUNX1T1. Our work has identified enhancer dysfunction as the major effect of cohesin mutation.

We have also shown that the impact of aberrant enhancer activity is most profound and causes gene expression dysregulation when cells have to respond to differentiation or external signalling cues.

We are currently working on determining whether enhancer dysfunction can be combated using enhancer blocking drugs or by individual targeting of enhancers using CRISPR-Cas9 technology. I am also using genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 screens in cohesin mutant leukaemia cells to identify synthetic lethal targets that could be therapeutically targeted.

To study the impact of cohesin mutation on signalling events we are using induced pluripotent stem cells and differentiating them to haematopoietic cells to examine chromatin organisation and gene expression. The work is funded by Cancer Society and Health Research Council grants.

Publications

Antony, J., Gimenez, G., Kalev-Zylinska, M., Morison, I., Bohlander, S., Hunter, F. W., … Horsfield, J. A. (2024, August-September). Targeting cohesin mutations in leukaemia to identity druggable avenues. Verbal presentation at the Queenstown Research Week (QRW) Cancer Meeting, Queenstown, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Sarkar, D., Gyanwali, G. C., Patel, J., Shevchuk, P., Woolley, A., Siddiqui, H., Ratajska, M., Sarwar, M., Drummond, C. J., McKinney, C., Antony, J., McCormick, S. P., Braithwaite, A., & Mehta, S. (2024, August-September). Role of H179 p53 mutation in driving aggressive tumours in patients. Verbal presentation at the Queenstown Research Week (QRW) Cancer Meeting, Queenstown, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Gimenez, G., Kalev-Zylinska, M. L., Morison, I., Bohlander, S. K., Horsfield, J. A., & Antony, J. (2024). Cohesin rad21 mutation dysregulates erythropoiesis and granulopoiesis output within the whole kidney marrow of adult zebrafish. American Journal of Physiology: Cell Physiology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1152/ajpcell.00657.2024 Journal - Research Article

Labudina, A. A., Meier, M., Gimenez, G., Tatarakis, D., Ketharnathan, S., Mackie, B., … Antony, J., & Horsfield, J. A. (2024). Cohesin composition and dosage independently affect early development in zebrafish. Development, 202593. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1242/dev.202593 Journal - Research Article

Banerjee, R., Ajithkumar, P., Keestra, N., Smith, J., Gimenez, G., Rodger, E. J., Eccles, M. R., Antony, J., Weeks, R. J., & Chatterjee, A. (2024). Targeted DNA methylation editing using an all-in-one system establishes paradoxical activation of EBF3. Cancers, 16, 898. doi: 10.3390/cancers16050898 Journal - Research Article

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