Chen Chen PhD, MS

Chen Chen, PhD, MS

Contact Me

Associate Professor

Phone:
517-353-3149

Email:
chen2@msu.edu

Education/Degree Information

Postdoc, University of Toronto

BS, China Agricultural University

MS, Texas A&M University

PhD, Washington University School of Medicine

Research Interests

My laboratory studies the molecular mechanisms underlying mammalian spermatogenesis and infertility using molecular, cellular, biochemical, mouse genetics and genomics approaches. The lab is broadly interested in genes and pathways influencing germ/stem cell self-renewal, differentiation and fertility with a current focus on the function of Tudor domain proteins and other Piwi-piRNA pathway associated factors in gene silencing, genome stability, epigenetics, stem cell biology and cancer.

Selected Publications

Ding D, Liu J, Dong K, Melnick A, Latham KE, Chen C^*. Mitochondrial membrane-based initial separation of MIWI and MILI functions during pachytene piRNA biogenesis. Nucleic Acids Res. 2018 Dec 22. doi:10.1093/nar/gky1281.^*Corresponding author.

Ding D, Liu J, Midic U, Wu Y, Dong K, Melnick A, Latham KE, Chen C*. TDRD5 binds piRNA precursors and selectively enhances pachytene piRNA processing in mice. Nat Commun. 2018 Jan 9;9(1)127. *Corresponding author.

Zhang H, Liu K, Izumi N, Ding D, Ni Z, Sidhu SS, Chen C, Tomari Y, Min j. Structural basis for arginine methylation-independent recognition of PIWIL1 by TDRD2. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Nov 21;114(47):12483-12488.

Ding D, Liu J, Dong K, Midic U, Hess RA, Xie H, Demireva EY, Chen C*. PNLDC1 is essential for piRNA 3� end trimming and transposon silencing during spermatogenesis in mice. Nat Commun. 2017 Oct 10;8(1):819. *Corresponding author.

Chen C, Jin J, James DA, Adams-Cioaba MA, Park JG, Guo Y, Tenaglia E, Xu C, Gish G, Min J, Pawson T. Mouse Piwi interactome identifies binding mechanism of Tdrkh Tudor domain to arginine methylated Miwi. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Dec 1;106(48):20336-41.

Chen C, Ouyang W, Grigura V, Zhou Q, Lim H, Zhao GQ, Carnes K, Arber S, Kurpios N, Murphy TL, Cheng AM, Hassell JA, Chandrashekar V, Hofmann M, Hess RA, Murphy KM. ERM is required for transcriptional control of the spermatogonial stem cell niche. Nature. 2005 August 18; 436:1030-34.