Bachelor student
The main purpose of Charlotte’s bachelor thesis was to investigate how mammalian Polycomb and Trithorax response elements (PRE/TREs) regulate their associated genes in stem cells. She integrated GFP reporter genes under the control of two different mouse PRE/TREs to the mouse embryonic stem cell genome and looked at expression states using live-cell microscopy. She observed that both PRE/TREs regulate the reporter gene in an "all or none" fashion, and that the two different PRE/TREs differ both in the level of maximum reporter expression, and the frequency of switching. These results are consistent with a bistable model of PRE/TRE regulation.