My Ph.D. work was aimed at understanding the function of the TH2BS11ph histone modification and linker histone variant H1t in the context of processes that occur during the meiotic prophase I of rodents. We showed that TH2BS11ph histone mark is associated with two classes of chromatin domains in spermatocytes: DNA repair domains of the XY body and Transcription start sites. This is the first study documenting the role of a post-translational modification of a germ cell-specific histone variant in meiotic prophase I related events (Mahadevan et al, Epigenetics and Chromatin, 2019). We demonstrated the close association of the linker histone variant H1t at repeat-associated chromatin domains in vivo, apart from its localization at the rDNA element. These repeat elements were found to be repressed by DNA methylation and repressive histone modifications like H3K9me3 and H4K20me3 in vivo. We hypothesize that H1t might induce local chromatin relaxation to recruit protein factors necessary to Transposable element repression (Mahadevan et al., Epigenetics and Chromatin, 2020).

Continuing with my interest of study, my projects at the Baker lab would be aimed at decoding the epigenetic phenomena related to various developmental pathways like ES cell pluripotency/differentiation and meiotic recombination in mouse model systems.