Moran Shalev-Benami

Congratulations to Zuckerman Faculty Scholar Moran Shalev-Benami, on the publication of her most recent study in the October issue of the journal Cell.

Dr. Shalev-Benami’s lab at Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Chemical and Structural Biology focuses on visualization of macromolecular complexes.  The study mapped different types of cells that make up brown fat, the “good fat” responsible for burning energy to generate heat and discovered it is composed of several distinct fat-storing cell populations. Her research team identified a key master protein (ChREBP) that controls the identity of a specific fat-storing cell type, showing how this crucial metabolic tissue adjusts its composition when exposed to cold.

Abstract:
Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) constitutes the core of ribosomes and is extensively chemically modified. Technical challenges have precluded systematically dissecting rRNA modifications and their dynamics. We develop Pan-Mod-seq, permitting inference of 16 distinct modifications across dozens of samples in parallel. We applied Pan-Mod-seq to RNA from 14 species spanning all domains of life, cultured under highly diverse conditions. While dynamic modifications are rare in mesophiles, in extreme hyperthermophiles, ∼50% of modifications are dynamic.