Skip to main content

Web Content Display Web Content Display

Research interests

Our laboratory studies mechanisms of induction and repair of DNA in mammalian cells, and develops new microscopy methods . We use various imaging techniques combined with cell biology, biochemical, and molecular methods.  Ourstudies into fundamental mechanisms of maintaining genome stability are pertinent to understanding of basic mechanisms of life, and are relevant to medical diagnostics and designing new therapies.

 

Our research interests include:

(i)       interactions between various chemical compounds (anticancer drugs, toxins and various molecules exhibiting affinity to DNA) and chromatin in live cells,

(ii)      internal architecture and protein dynamics in DNA repair foci,

(iii)     mechanisms of induction of DNA damage by visible light, DNA-intercalating drugs, and CRSPR/Cas9,

(iv)     the influence of hypoxia on repair of DNA damage, and

(v)      processes of saturation of DNA repair capacity

 

We use the following laboratory methods:

  • live cell fluorescence imaging,
  • FRAP (fluorescence recovery after photobleaching)
  • FLIM (fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy)
  • FCS and FCCS (fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy),
  • BiFC (bimolecular fluorescence complementation assay)
  • super-resolution imaging (dSTORM, direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy)

 

 and several methods optimized in our laboratory:

  • induction of DNA single- or double-strand breaks by a low intensity beam of visible light (Solarczyk  et al. DNA Repair (Amst). 2012;11(12):996)
  • induction of individual or clusters or DNA single- or double-stranded breaks by CRISPR/Cas9 (Wesołowska et al., in preparation)
  • detection of individual double- or single-strand breaks by dSTRIDE and sSTRIDE methods (Kordon et al. Nucleic Acids Res. 2020;48(3):e14), and
  • analysis of DNA damage in relation to various nuclear processes represented by subnuclear foci, using our dedicated software (Berniak et al., Cytometry A. 2013;83(10):913-24).

 

We use the following laboratory methods:

  • live cell fluorescence imaging,
  • FRAP (fluorescence recovery after photobleaching)
  • FLIM (fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy)
  • FCS and FCCS (fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy),
  • BiFC (bimolecular fluorescence complementation assay)
  • super-resolution imaging (dSTORM, direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy)

 

 and several methods optimized in our laboratory:

  • induction of DNA single- or double-strand breaks by a low intensity beam of visible light (Solarczyk  et al. DNA Repair (Amst). 2012;11(12):996)
  • induction of individual or clusters or DNA single- or double-stranded breaks by CRISPR/Cas9 (Wesołowska et al., in preparation)
  • detection of individual double- or single-strand breaks by dSTRIDE and sSTRIDE methods (Kordon et al. Nucleic Acids Res. 2020;48(3):e14), and
  • analysis of DNA damage in relation to various nuclear processes represented by subnuclear foci, using our dedicated software (Berniak et al., Cytometry A. 2013;83(10):913-24).