# Optogenetic Engineering of 3D Chromatin Architecture

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR HOUSTON · 2020 · $230,599

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
The organizing principle of chromatin architecture in three dimensions (3D) remains a major mystery in biology.
A rapid progress has been made in the last decade to characterize the hierarchies of chromatin architecture,
including enhancer-promoter loops, chromatin contact domains, topological domains and chromatin A/B com-
partments. Importantly, the alteration of the 3D genome architecture plays an important role in human disease
such as developmental disorders and cancer. However, a major current challenge is to determine the biologi-
cal importance of each layer of these 3D chromatin architectures, to uncover their causative roles in modulat-
ing gene expression and/or other nuclear activities, and to potentially manipulate these architectures for dis-
ease intervention. We assembled a strong team of investigators to develop an innovative new toolset to help
solve this challenge, which takes advantage of light controllable protein dimers and advanced Crispr/Cas9 ge-
nome editing technology. Our goal in this project is to develop the prototype of this toolset that we referred to
as PaCIR to create de novo enhancer-promoter loops and topological associated domain that could be rapidly
activated and deactivated. The successful execution of this project will provide a highly demanded strategy to
study chromatin loops at essentially any specific regions of interests in vitro and in vivo. This toolset is rapid,
efficient and non-invasive, which will not only pave way for uncovering profound new insights into chromatin
loops and domains in gene transcription control, but also shed lights on a novel concept to rectify disease-
associated mal-formation of chromatin architectures.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10004126
- **Project number:** 5R21GM132778-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR HOUSTON
- **Principal Investigator:** Wenbo Li
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $230,599
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10004126

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10004126, Optogenetic Engineering of 3D Chromatin Architecture (5R21GM132778-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-01 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10004126. Licensed CC0.

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