The Hancock Lab
Transposon Biology
The Hancock Lab focuses on understanding the transposition behavior of the mPing element and harnessing this element for plant gene discovery. Click on the links below to learn more:
Transposition Mechanisms
Transposable elements are mobile pieces of DNA that are capable of transposing, or “jumping”, from one location in a genome to another. The transposon used in Dr. Hancock’s lab, mPing, is a 430bp miniature inverted repeat transposable element (MITE) that naturally occurs in the rice genome. Projects are ongoing to evaluate which regions of mPing promote transposition and to determine if the insertion of mPing can be targeted to specific sequences. Other projects are working on determining the transposition mechanism and how replicative transposition occurs.
Objectives
Test the effect of modifications to mPing
Determine what regions of mPing and the transposase proteins are involved in transposition
Identify hyperactive versions of the element and transposase proteins
Funding
NSF Genetic Mechanisms CAREER (2017 - 2023): $695,696
Revealing the mechanisms that determine how an active DNA TE impacts the genome.
Gene Discovery
Our long-term goal is to use mPing based elements as tools for gene discovery in crop species. The transposon has already been placed into soybean, arabidopsis, and wheat. There are two approaches for using mPing in gene discovery. The first is using the element to “break” genes by inserting the element in or near the gene. By breaking the gene, the impact of the loss of the gene can be observed and hypotheses on the function of that gene can be formed. The second strategy uses mPing for activation tagging. An enhancer sequence is placed into the middle of the mPingelement. When the activation tag inserts near a gene, that gene is upregulated and over-expression can occur. The impact of overexpression of the gene can be used to gain insight into the function of that gene.
Objectives
Transfer mPing to additional crop species and test its ability to induce mutations.
Test alternative forms of mPing that can cause overexpression and silencing.
Identify host mechanisms that regulate mPing transposition
This project is a collaboration with the University of Georgia, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and University of Minnesota. Our group has produced populations of mutagenized plants. Efforts are underway to characterize these mutants and make these resources available to the research community (see soymutants.uga.edu).
Dr. Nathan Hancock
Education
Ph.D. (Biochemistry) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005
Research Interests
Dr. Hancock is a plant biologist interested in the genes that control agronomic traits. His research focuses on using a transposable element from rice to discover gene functions.
Courses Taught
Introductory Biology, Biochemistry, Plant Physiology
Publications
Charles Nathan Hancock on Google Scholar
Connect with us!
For further information on working in Dr. Hancock's lab, contact him at 803-641-3390 or [email protected].