Invited speakers: Sara Brown, University of Edinburgh; Liv Eidsmo, Karolinska Institute; Kilian Eyerich, University of Freiburg; Lars French, LMU Munich.
Here we report that Hira and Cdk8 mutations induce rapid loss of one X chromosome in a Mus musculus castaneus hybrid female ESC line that originally maintains two X chromosomes. Our analysis shows that X chromosome loss is not explained by selection of XO cells, but likely driven by a process of chromosome elimination.
Ferrarese/Koch show that loss of FGFR2 in human keratinocytes promotes the expression of pro-inflammatory genes and that expression of FGFR2 itself is downregulated in keratinocytes exposed to pro-inflammatory stimuli, similarly to lesional skin of atopic dermatitis patients.
Karasu et al. discovered that TREX1, an exonuclease, suppresses CRISPR-Cas9-mediated HDR. Modifying DNA repair templates or reducing TREX1 expression before CRISPR genome editing significantly increases HDR efficiencies.