Prof. Yan Jiang
Principal Investigator
Research Directions
Epigenetic mechanism in depression and other neuropsychological disorders
Contact Information
Address: Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, 138 Yixueyuan Road, Shanghai 200032, China
Email: yan_jiang@fudan.edu.cn Tel:021-54237050
Dr. Jiang joined Institute of Brain Science in Fudan University at 2018. Prior to joining Fudan, she was a research assistant professor in the Departments of Psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. She had postdoctoral training in UT Southwestern Medical Center. She earned doctorate degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Enrollment Major
Neurobiology
Research Direction
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common but serious mood disorder of unknown etiology. Most of the conventional antidepressants target monoamine pathway and share the same limitations and side effects, including delayed onset of action and insufficient efficacy. There is an urgent need to explore new mechanisms beyond the monoamine hypothesis. Many features of MDD are consistent with the involvement of epigenetic dysregulations, which are reversible and may open new avenues for therapeutic interventions. Our current work is to use transgenic animal model, in conjunction of multiple epigenetic techniques, including RNAseq, ChIPseq, ATACseq, in situ HiC and CRISPR/Cas9 genomic editing system to study the epigenomic regulations for depression. Our goal is to understand the pathophysiological basis of depression and explore novel targets for the development of future treatment.
Selected Publications
1.Chandrasekaran S, Espeso-Gil S, Loh YHE, Javidfar B, Kassim B, Zhu YY, Zhang Y, Dong YH, Bicks LK, Li HX, Rajarajan P, Peter CJ, Sun DJ, Agullo-Pascual E, Iskhakova M, Estill M, Lesch BJ, Shen L, Jiang Y*, Akbarian S*(2021). Neuron-specific chromosomal megadomain organization is adaptive to recent retrotransposon expansions. Nat Commun. 12(1): 7243
2. Sun D, Weng J, Dong Y, Jiang Y*(2021). 3D genome organization in the central nervous system, implications for neuropsychological disorders. J Genet Genomics. 48(12):1045-1056
3. Espeso-Gil S, Halene T, Bendl J, Kassim B, Ben Hutta G, Iskhakova M, Shokrian N, Auluck P, Javidfar B, Rajarajan P, Chandrasekaran S, Peter CJ, Cote A, Birnbaum R, Liao W, Borrman T, Wiseman J, Bell A, Bannon MJ, Roussos P, Crary JF, Weng Z, Marenco S, Lipska B, Tsankova NM, Huckins L, Jiang Y*, Akbarian S*(2020). A chromosomal connectome for psychiatric and metabolic risk variants in adult dopaminergic neurons. Genome Med. 12(1):19
4. Zhu Y, Sun D, Jakovcevski M, Jiang Y*(2020). Epigenetic mechanism of SETDB1 in brain: implications for neuropsychiatric disorders. Transl Psychiatry. 10(1):115
5. Jiang Y#, Loh YHE#, Rajarajan P, Hirayama T, Liao W, Kassim BS, Javidfar B, Hartley BJ, Kleofas L, Park RB, Labonte B, Ho SM, Chandrasekaran S, Do C, Ramirez BR, Peter CJ, Julia TCW, Safaie BM, Morishita H, Roussos P, Nestler EJ, Schaefer A, Tycko B, Brennand KJ, Yagi T, Shen L, Akbarian S*(2017). The methyltransferase SETDB1 regulates a large neuron-specific topological chromatin domain. Nat Genet. 49(8): 1239 (F1000)
