Dr. Thanvi Srikant

I am fascinated by how epigenetic and epigenomic signatures in plants can influence transcriptional stability and associated phenotypic traits, especially across diverse populations within a species.

I completed my PhD in 2021 at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen, studying natural accessions of the mustard plant Arabidopsis thaliana. For my thesis, I investigated the interplay between DNA methylation, chromatin architecture and gene expression in a large collection of epigenetic mutants and wild-types.

In January 2022, I began my postdoctoral research at the Bomblies lab to study the molecular changes associated with polyploidy evolution in Arabidopsis arenosa. Several genes under selection in natural autotetraploids of this species (compared to natural diploids) include genes associated with chromatin remodeling and core transcription. This gives us reason to believe that chromatin may be affected by genome duplication, and raises the hypothesis that chromatin-associated proteins may function in stabilizing the epigenetic instability of new tetraploids (‘neo-tetraploids’), in somatic tissues as well as in meiocytes, where such changes can impact fertility.

For my projects in the Bomblies lab, I aim to understand how chromatin architecture and transcription vary during the onset and evolutionary stabilization of polyploidy. To this end, I use sequencing approaches such as ATAC-seq and RNA-seq on somatic tissues of diploid, neo-tetraploid and autotetraploid A. arenosa individuals from natural populations across Europe. Additionally, I am also examining meiocytes and pollen tubes across cytotypes for their transcriptome and epigenome changes during polyploidy.

These results will help us understand how shifts in the chromatin landscape and transcriptome triggered either by genome duplication itself, or subsequent evolutionary adjustments, could produce transient or lasting novelty in polyploids.