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Andrew S. Belmont

Profile picture for Andrew S. Belmont

Contact Information

B509 Chemical & Life Sciences Laboratory
Professor of Cell & Developmental Biology
Professor of Biophysics and Quantitative Biology

Research Interests

Research Topics

Chromatin Structure, Imaging, Regulation of Gene Expression

Research Description

Chromatin Structure, Gene expression, Nuclear Architecture

We are interested in how 10 and 30 nm chromatin fibers fold into interphase and mitotic chromosomes, how interphase chromosomes are moved and positioned within nuclei, and what this means for DNA functions such as transcription and replication. Currently, our understanding of these higher levels of chromatin organization, which we refer to as large-scale chromatin structure, is poor. We use a combination of molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, and microscopy to visualize nuclear positioning and folding dynamics of specific chromosome regions and individual gene loci and to relate this to regulation of transcription and replication.

Most recently we have begun to apply our knowledge of chromosome dynamics to design improved tools for gene therapy and biotechnology. We have also developed TSA-Seq, a new genomic method providing a direct readout of how interphase chromosomes are positioned within nuclei.

Education

A.B., Princeton University (Physics)
M.D./Ph.D., Temple University (Biophysics)
Postdoc., University of California-San Francisco

Additional Campus Affiliations

Highlighted Publications

Representative Publications

Dopie, J., Sweredoski, M.J., Moradian, A., Belmont, A.S., Tyramide Signal Amplification Mass Spectrometry (TSA-MS-ratio) Identifies Nuclear Speckle Proteins, JCB, in press, doi: 10.1083/jcb.201910207

Zhao, B, Chaturvedi, P., Zimmerman, D.L., Belmont, A.S., Efficient and Reproducible Multigene Expression after Single-Step Transfection Using Improved BAC Transgenesis and Engineering Toolkit, ACS Synth Biol. (2020) doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.9b00457

Kim, J., Khanna, N., A.S. Belmont, Gene expression amplification by nuclear speckles, JCB (2020) 219 (1): e201904046, doi: 10.1083/jcb.201904046

Chen, Y. and A.S. Belmont, Genome Organization Around Nuclear Speckles, Current Opinion in Genes and Development (2019), 55:91-99. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2019.06.008

Kim, J., Khanna, N., Han, K.Y., Ha, T., A. S. Belmont, Nuclear speckle fusion via long-range directional motion regulates the number and size of speckles in live cells, JCS (2019) 132(8). pii: jcs226563. doi: 10.1242/jcs.226563, PMID:30858197

Chen, Y., Zhang, Y., Wang, Y., Zhang, L., Brinkman, E.K., Adam, S.A., Goldman, R., van Steensel, B., Ma, J., Belmont, A.S., Mapping 3D genome organization relative to nuclear compartments using TSA-Seq as a cytological ruler, JCB 217:4025-4048 (2018), PMID:30154186

Tasan, I, Sustackova, G., Zhang, L, Kim, J., Sivaguru, M., HamediRad M.M, Wang, Y., Justin Genova, J., Ma, J., Belmont, A.S., and H. Zhao, CRISPR/Cas9-mediated Knock-in of an Optimized TetO Repeat for Live Cell Imaging of Endogenous Loci, Nucleic Acids Research, 46(17):e100 (2018) doi: 10.1093/nar/gky501, PMID:29912475, PMC6158506

Chaturvedi, P., Zhao, B, Zimmerman, D.L., and A.S. Belmont, Stable and Reproducible Transgene Expression Independent of Proliferative or Differentiated State Using BAC TG-EMBED, Gen Ther. 2018, 25(5):376-391. doi: 10.1038/s41434-018-0021-z, PMID:29930343, PMC6195848

van Steensel, B., Belmont, A.S., Lamina-Associated Domains: Links with Chromosome Architecture, Heterochromatin, and Gene Repression, Cell 169: 780-791 (2017), PMC5532494, PMID:28525751

Deng, X, Zhironkina, O.A., Cherepanynets, V.D., Strelkova, O.S., Kireev, I.I., Belmont, A.S., Cytology of DNA Replication Reveals Dynamic Plasticity of Large-scale Chromatin Fibers, Current Biology 26:2527-34 (2016), PMC5039087, PMID: 27568589

Recent Publications

Dekker, J., Alber, F., Aufmkolk, S., Beliveau, B. J., Bruneau, B. G., Belmont, A. S., Bintu, L., Boettiger, A., Calandrelli, R., Disteche, C. M., Gilbert, D. M., Gregor, T., Hansen, A. S., Huang, B., Huangfu, D., Kalhor, R., Leslie, C. S., Li, W., Li, Y., ... Zhong, S. (2023). Spatial and temporal organization of the genome: Current state and future aims of the 4D nucleome project. Molecular cell, 83(15), 2624-2640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2023.06.018

Xiong, X., Tasan, I., Yang, C., Zhang, M., Hernandez Gonzalez, G. A., Liu, S., Chaturvedi, P., Belmont, A. S., & Zhao, H. (2023). Imaging Method Using CRISPR/dCas9 and Engineered gRNA Scaffolds Can Perturb Replication Timing at the HSPA1 Locus. ACS synthetic biology, 12(5), 1424-1436. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.2c00433

Belmont, A. S. (2022). Nuclear Compartments: An Incomplete Primer to Nuclear Compartments, Bodies, and Genome Organization Relative to Nuclear Architecture. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 14(7), Article a041268. https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a041268

Zhang, L., Chen, Y., & Belmont, A. S. (2022). Measuring Cytological Proximity of Chromosomal Loci to Defined Nuclear Compartments with TSA-seq. In Methods in Molecular Biology (pp. 145-186). (Methods in Molecular Biology; Vol. 2532). Humana Press Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2497-5_8

Zhu, X., Zhang, Y., Wang, Y., Tian, D., Belmont, A. S., Swedlow, J. R., & Ma, J. (2022). Nucleome Browser: an integrative and multimodal data navigation platform for 4D Nucleome. Nature Methods, 19(8), 911-913. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-022-01559-3

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