Meers Lab | Google Scholar Profile | CV
Bio
Michael Meers obtained a BS in Biology from Duke University, and a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under the supervison of Dr. A Gregory Matera. At UNC, Mike used genetic models of direct histone mutagenesis to understand how histone post-translational modifications function in mRNA maturation and regulation. In his postdoc at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in the lab of Dr. Steven Henikoff, Mike developed new epigenomic and computational tools to map transcription factor-chromatin interactions at high resolution to better understand how such interactions coordinate cell fate transitions. Mike continues to use high-resolution chromatin profiling in his lab in the Department of Genetics at WashU School of Medicine to study the molecular competition between transcription factors and chromatin landscapes in development and disease.
Research
The Meers Lab studies how transcription factors interact with and overcome barriers presented by chromatin landscapes to specify developmental and cellular reprogramming outcomes. To do so, we develop cutting-edge epigenomics techniques to map transcription factor binding and chromatin structure in the same context at high resolution. We further use these tools and the insights gained from them to better understand the etiology of a range of cancers whose pathogenesis centers on the global dysregulation of chromatin landscapes.
Featured Publications
1. Meers MP, Llagas G, Janssens DH, Codomo CA, Henikoff S. Multifactorial profiling of epigenetic landscapes at single-cell resolution using MulTI-Tag. Nature Biotechnology 2022, doi: 10.1038/s41587022-01522-9
2. Janssens DH, Meers MP, Wu SJ, Babaeva E, Meshinchi S, Sarthy JF, Ahmad K, Henikoff S. Automated CUT&Tag profiling of chromatin heterogeneity in KMT2Ar leukemia. Nature Genetics 2021, doi: 10.1038/s41588-021-00941-9
3. Sarthy JF, Meers MP, Janssens DH, Henikoff JG, Feldman H, Paddison PJ, Lockwood CM, Vitanza NA, Olson JM, Ahmad K, Henikoff S. Histone deposition pathways determine the chromatin landscapes of H3.1 and H3.3 K27M oncohistones. eLife 2020, doi: 10.7554/eLife.61090
4. Meers MP, Janssens DH, Henikoff S. Pioneer factor-nucleosome binding events during differentiation are motif-encoded. Molecular Cell 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2019.05.025
5. Meers MP, Tenenbaum D, Henikoff S. Peak calling by Sparse Enrichment Analysis for CUT&RUN chromatin profiling. Epigenetics Chromatin 2019, doi: 10.1186/s13072-019-0287-4
6. Meers MP, Bryson TD, Henikoff JG, Henikoff S. Improved CUT&RUN chromatin profiling tools. eLife 2019, doi: 10.7554/eLife.46314
7. Meers MP, Henriques T, Lavender CA, McKay DJ, Strahl BD, Duronio RJ, Adelman K, Matera AG. Histone gene replacement reveals a post-transcriptional role for H3K36 in maintaining metazoan transcriptome fidelity. eLife 2017, doi: 10.7554/eLife.23249