Wednesday, 07. February 2024, 10.00 a.m.
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 2, 3. Etage – SR 3319

New adventures in nanopore sequencing: Decoding host-virus interactions at the level of individual RNAs

Prof. Dr. Daniel Depledge
(Institute for Virology, Hannover Medical School)

My lab studies the RNA biology of DNA viruses in diverse contexts. These include the (i) regulation of the lytic-latent switch in virus-infected neurons, (ii) viral manipulation of RNA polymerase III during productive infections, and (iii) the role of epitranscriptomic regulation in virus-host interactions.

The common thread running through these studies is the use of nanopore direct RNA sequencing (DRS) to capture individual RNA states and mine information on the presence and location of chemically modified ribonucleotides and estimate poly(A) tail lengths.

Through the lens of several recent and ongoing studies in my lab, I will highlight specific challenges we have faced with DRS and the computational approaches we have developed to solve these in order to advance our studies of host-virus interactions in lytic and latency environments.