TANEJA LAB RESEARCH

Research Focus

The focus of the Taneja laboratory has been regulation of skeletal myogenesis and muscle regeneration. The initial phase of our work was focused on the biology of the bHLH transcription factors Stra13 (Bhlhe40) and Sharp-1 (Bhlhe41) in cellular differentiation and regeneration, and translation to human disease models. The current focus of the lab on chromatin modifiers that were identified to interact with these transcription factors in skeletal muscle biology in two key areas:

(A) Epigenetic regulation of muscle differentiation and;
(B) Epigenetic aberrations in skeletal muscle tumors (rhabdomyosarcoma) that arise due to a block in myogenic differentiation.

The lab was the first to identify the role of the lysine methyltransferase G9a in alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, as well as the histone acetyltranferase PCAF. These findings have shown that small molecule inhibitors targeting G9a activity or PCAF activity are effective in these tumors. Ongoing studies are to explore the role of these and other chromatin modifiers in different subtypes of these tumors and examine how they contribute to the block of muscle differentiation, invasiveness and self-renewal of tumor cells.