Grace Bower
@gracebower.bsky.social
PhD candidate in the Kvon Lab @ UC Irvine 👩🏻🔬🧬
Honored to lead off such an amazing set of speakers 🧬 🌟
We're super excited to announce the entire lineup for the Fall season of Fragile Nucleosome Seminars, starting on Sept 10th at 1200 EDT / 1600 UTC with @gracebower.bsky.social and @creminslab.bsky.social!
register here for the entire series: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
register here for the entire series: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
September 2, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Honored to lead off such an amazing set of speakers 🧬 🌟
Reposted by Grace Bower
Finally out! 🥳 Our paper showing how a transposable element (TE) insertion can cause developmental phenotypes is now published @natgenet.nature.com 🧬🦠🐁
Below is a brief description of the major findings. Check the full version of the paper for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02248-5
Below is a brief description of the major findings. Check the full version of the paper for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02248-5
Enhancer adoption by an LTR retrotransposon generates viral-like particles, causing developmental limb phenotypes - Nature Genetics
Activation of an LTR retrotransposon inserted upstream of the Fgf8 gene produces viral-like particles in the mouse developing limb, triggering apoptosis and causing limb malformation. This phenotype c...
www.nature.com
July 9, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Finally out! 🥳 Our paper showing how a transposable element (TE) insertion can cause developmental phenotypes is now published @natgenet.nature.com 🧬🦠🐁
Below is a brief description of the major findings. Check the full version of the paper for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02248-5
Below is a brief description of the major findings. Check the full version of the paper for more details: www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02248-5
I think the new highest honor in science is an adorable cartoon of your work 🌟
Getting the message across from a distance:
🧬REX🧬 is a “Range EXtender” element that can turn short-range into looooooooooooong-range enhancers
Great collaboration led by @gracebower.bsky.social and @evgenykvon.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@biosci.lbl.gov @berkeleylab.lbl.gov
🧬REX🧬 is a “Range EXtender” element that can turn short-range into looooooooooooong-range enhancers
Great collaboration led by @gracebower.bsky.social and @evgenykvon.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@biosci.lbl.gov @berkeleylab.lbl.gov
July 2, 2025 at 7:57 PM
I think the new highest honor in science is an adorable cartoon of your work 🌟
A dream come true: my first first-author publication! 🧬 🎉 Working to unravel the mysteries of long-range gene regulation has been an incredible journey. Endless gratitude to Evgeny, the lab, and all of the amazing collaborators who helped make this happen 🙌
Our paper describing the Range Extender element which is required and sufficient for long-range enhancer activation at the Shh locus is now available at @nature.com. Congrats to @gracebower.bsky.social who led the study. Below is a brief summary of the main findings www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/
Range extender mediates long-distance enhancer activity - Nature
The REX element is associated with long-range enhancer–promoter interactions.
www.nature.com
July 2, 2025 at 7:54 PM
A dream come true: my first first-author publication! 🧬 🎉 Working to unravel the mysteries of long-range gene regulation has been an incredible journey. Endless gratitude to Evgeny, the lab, and all of the amazing collaborators who helped make this happen 🙌
Reposted by Grace Bower
How do non-coding variants in enhancers lead to disease? Happy to share our recent work, led by @ewholling.bsky.social, in which we discovered that poised chromatin sensitizes enhancers to aberrant activation by non-coding mutations, contributing to disease. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/
June 23, 2025 at 12:57 PM
How do non-coding variants in enhancers lead to disease? Happy to share our recent work, led by @ewholling.bsky.social, in which we discovered that poised chromatin sensitizes enhancers to aberrant activation by non-coding mutations, contributing to disease. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/
Reposted by Grace Bower
Awesome summary of the field. An important point is to separate the design method from the oracle model being used. Sometimes, people say they're proposing a new design method but mean a cool new oracle model.
Modelling and design of transcriptional enhancers
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Modelling and design of transcriptional enhancers
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Modelling and design of transcriptional enhancers - Nature Reviews Bioengineering
Enhancers are genomic elements critical for regulating gene expression. In this Review, the authors discuss how sequence-to-function models can be used to unravel the rules underlying enhancer activit...
www.nature.com
March 3, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Awesome summary of the field. An important point is to separate the design method from the oracle model being used. Sometimes, people say they're proposing a new design method but mean a cool new oracle model.
Modelling and design of transcriptional enhancers
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Modelling and design of transcriptional enhancers
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Reposted by Grace Bower
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39579740/ I liked this thoughtful review
Genetic factors mediating long-range enhancer-promoter communication in mammalian development - PubMed
Enhancers are remotely located noncoding DNA sequences that regulate gene expression in response to developmental, homeostatic, and environmental cues. Canonical short-range enhancers located <50 kb f...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
March 3, 2025 at 10:18 PM
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39579740/ I liked this thoughtful review
Reposted by Grace Bower
Here is the peer-reviewed version of our study showing how some TAD borders are essential for gene regulation and development.
Loss of a single CTCF motif is sufficient to cause embryonic lethality.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Loss of a single CTCF motif is sufficient to cause embryonic lethality.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Deletion of a single CTCF motif at the boundary of a chromatin domain with three FGF genes disrupts gene expression and embryonic development
Chromatin domains delimited by CTCF can restrict the range of enhancer action. However, disruption of some domain boundaries results in mild gene dysr…
www.sciencedirect.com
February 26, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Here is the peer-reviewed version of our study showing how some TAD borders are essential for gene regulation and development.
Loss of a single CTCF motif is sufficient to cause embryonic lethality.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Loss of a single CTCF motif is sufficient to cause embryonic lethality.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Grace Bower
We highlighted new research from the past two years on examples of long-range gene regulation - within large TADs, across TADs, and across chromosomes - comparing mechanisms in flies and mammals 🪰❤️🐁.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
February 13, 2025 at 12:22 PM
We highlighted new research from the past two years on examples of long-range gene regulation - within large TADs, across TADs, and across chromosomes - comparing mechanisms in flies and mammals 🪰❤️🐁.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
It was exciting to dig into all the new discoveries in long range gene regulation while writing this!
In this review @gracebower.bsky.social & I discuss recent evidence showing that, unlike canonical enhancers, long-range enhancers located hundreds of kb from their targets rely on additional mechanisms to ensure robust gene activation during mammal development. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 22, 2024 at 10:27 PM
It was exciting to dig into all the new discoveries in long range gene regulation while writing this!
Reposted by Grace Bower
REX - a mammalian "range extender" element that can turn short-distance enhancers into long-distance enhancers.
New preprint from a collaboration led by Grace Bower and Evgeny Kvon.
doi.org/10.1101/2024...
New preprint from a collaboration led by Grace Bower and Evgeny Kvon.
doi.org/10.1101/2024...
May 27, 2024 at 4:26 PM
REX - a mammalian "range extender" element that can turn short-distance enhancers into long-distance enhancers.
New preprint from a collaboration led by Grace Bower and Evgeny Kvon.
doi.org/10.1101/2024...
New preprint from a collaboration led by Grace Bower and Evgeny Kvon.
doi.org/10.1101/2024...