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Research Collaborate Lab Bench
Biochemistry
Emma Morrison, PhD

Emma Morrison, PhD

Assistant Professor

Locations

  • TBRC C2980

Contact Information

General Interests

Nucleosome structure, dynamics, and mechanisms of regulation using biophysical techniques including NMR spectroscopy.

Education

Post-doctoral training, University of Iowa, 2014-2019
PhD, Washington University in St. Louis, 2014
BA, Johns Hopkins University, 2008

Biography

Dr. Morrison received her Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University. She continued on to study mechanisms of broad ligand specificity in a multi-drug resistance transporter (EmrE) with Dr. Katherine Henzler-Wildman, receiving her PhD in Molecular Biophysics from Washington University in St. Louis. From there, Dr. Morrison transitioned into the field of chromatin regulation as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Catherine Musselman at the University of Iowa. There, she became interested in nucleosome structure and dynamics. During her postdoctoral studies, she was awarded a fellowship from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Dr. Morrison joined the faculty at the 老澳门六合彩图库 in 2019 where she continues her investigation into the role of histone tail conformation and dynamics in chromatin regulation.

Research Interests

The Morrison lab is interested in understanding molecular mechanisms of chromatin regulation, which are key in fundamental mechanisms of gene regulation and provide valuable insight into human health and disease. A complex network of machinery dynamically regulates the organization and accessibility of the human genome within chromatin. This re-organization starts at the level of the nucleosome, the basic subunit of chromatin. The nucleosome is a histone protein-DNA complex, and the N-terminal tails of the histone proteins protrude from the core complex to interact with regulatory machinery. These interactions are often driven by specific histone post-translational modifications (PTMs).

Our recent studies have contributed to recognizing that the histone tails have reduced accessibility to interactions with chromatin regulatory machinery within the nucleosome due to interactions with DNA. These findings suggest that there are other nuclear factors in vivo that modulate the conformation and in turn the accessibility of the tails to regulate interactions with protein machinery that lead to downstream chromatin regulation. We are taking a quantitative, biophysical approach in order to determine the role of the histone tails in chromatin structure and dynamics by studying the conformation and dynamics of the histone tails within nucleosomes. Factors such as histone PTMs and histone variants have the potential to directly regulate histone tail conformation, thereby regulating chromatin structure and modulating accessibility to binding factors.

The lab uses NMR spectroscopy along with a range of other biophysical and biochemical techniques in order to investigate these questions. If you are interested in joining the team, please contact Dr. Morrison.

Morrison et al., eLife, 2018

Publications

  • (Jennings CE, Zoss CJ, Morrison EA.) Front Mol Biosci. 2023;10:1150400 PMID: 37261328 PMCID: PMC10228543 06/01/2023

  • (Hammonds EF, Morrison EA.) Methods Mol Biol. 2023;2599:177-190 PMID: 36427150 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85142940540 11/26/2022

  • (Paintsil EA, Morrison EA.) Methods Mol Biol. 2023;2599:163-175 PMID: 36427149 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85142940771 11/26/2022

  • (Hammonds EF, Harwig MC, Paintsil EA, Tillison EA, Hill RB, Morrison EA.) Biophys Chem. 2022 Apr;283:106767 PMID: 35158124 PMCID: PMC8963862 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85124393236 02/15/2022

  • (Lupo BE, Chu P, Harms MJ, Morrison EA, Musselman CA.) J Mol Biol. 2021 Jul 09;433(14):166845 PMID: 33539881 PMCID: PMC8184587 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85101513034 02/05/2021

  • (Morrison EA, Baweja L, Poirier MG, Wereszczynski J, Musselman CA.) Nucleic Acids Res. 2021 May 07;49(8):4750-4767 PMID: 33856458 PMCID: PMC8096233 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85106069963 04/16/2021

  • (Li Y, Xie N, Chen R, Lee AR, Lovnicki J, Morrison EA, Fazli L, Zhang Q, Musselman CA, Wang Y, Huang J, Gleave ME, Collins C, Dong X.) Eur Urol. 2019 Aug;76(2):157-166 PMID: 30910347 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85063207106 03/27/2019

  • (Thomas NE, Wu C, Morrison EA, Robinson AE, Werner JP, Henzler-Wildman KA.) J Biol Chem. 2018 Dec 07;293(49):19137-19147 PMID: 30287687 PMCID: PMC6295725 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85058168173 10/06/2018

  • (Weaver TM, Morrison EA, Musselman CA.) Molecules. 2018 Oct 12;23(10) PMID: 30322003 PMCID: PMC6222470 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85054890627 10/17/2018

  • (Morrison EA, Bowerman S, Sylvers KL, Wereszczynski J, Musselman CA.) Elife. 2018 Apr 12;7 PMID: 29648537 PMCID: PMC5953545 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85051927084 04/13/2018

  • (Robinson AE, Thomas NE, Morrison EA, Balthazor BM, Henzler-Wildman KA.) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Nov 21;114(47):E10083-E10091 PMID: 29114048 PMCID: PMC5703289 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85034576395 11/09/2017

  • (Morrison EA, Sanchez JC, Ronan JL, Farrell DP, Varzavand K, Johnson JK, Gu BX, Crabtree GR, Musselman CA.) Nat Commun. 2017 Jul 14;8:16080 PMID: 28706277 PMCID: PMC5519978 SCOPUS ID: 2-s2.0-85024494914 07/15/2017

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