In this project we characterize the role of transcriptional coregulators in gene regulation (Mannervik et al. 1999). Coregulators are proteins that themselves do not bind to DNA, but that facilitate communication between sequence-specific transcription factors and the basal RNA polymerase machinery. One function of coregulators is to modify the structure of chromatin, by acetylating (coactivators) or deacetylating (corepressors) histones. 

Epigenetics can be defined as non-genetic changes that are transmitted through cell-divisions. Epigenetic patterns of histone modifications contribute to the maintenance of tissue-specific gene expression, but little is known about how such patterns are initially established during early embryo development. We investigate how the three germlayers mesoderm, neuroectoderm, and dorsal etoderm come to differ in their epigenetic patterns in response to the Dorsal protein morphogen.