Professor Thomas Preiss
Centre Director, The Shine-Dalgarno Centre for RNA Innovation
Group Leader
Professor
PhD
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About
Thomas Preiss pursued his academic education from 1986 to 1991, studying Chemistry at the Philipps-Universität, Marburg (Germany), and the University of Bristol (UK). He went on to complete his Ph.D. from 1992 to 1995 at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UK). Subsequently, he spent seven years (1995-2002) as a postdoctoral scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratories (EMBL) in Heidelberg (Germany) and also achieved a Habilitation in Biochemistry.
In 2002, he joined the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, as group leader and held concurrent positions at the University of New South Wales, initially as a Senior Lecturer and later as an Associate Professor.
In 2011, he became a Professor of RNA Biology at ANU John Curtin School of Medical Research. In 2020, he took on the role of the inaugural director of the ANU Shine-Dalgarno Centre for RNA Innovation.
Affiliations
Centre
Division
Groups
- The Preiss Group - RNA Biology, Leader
- The Shirokikh Group - Protein Biosynthesis and Homeostatic Control, Collaborator
- The Hannan Group - Cancer Therapeutics, Collaborator
Research interests
The Preiss Group is at the forefront of investigating RNA-level gene regulation in eukaryotes, a field of great significance due to the extensive transcription of our genome into diverse RNA molecules, many of which remain shrouded in mystery regarding their functions. Our overarching goal is to unravel the intricacies of transcription outputs, shedding light on how RNA processing, modification, and dynamic RNA-protein interactions shape the function of the transcriptome. Given the prevalence of RNA dysregulation in disease, our research addresses various facets of human health, with an emphasis on cancer and cardiac biology. Our research relies on mammalian and yeast cell culture models, employing a blend of classical molecular biology techniques and cutting-edge 'omics' approaches.
Projects
Location
Room 3.087
Publications
- Ortiz-Barahona, V., Soler, M., Davalos, V. et al. Epigenetic inactivation of the 5-methylcytosine RNA methyltransferase NSUN7 is associated with clinical outcome and therapeutic vulnerability in liver cancer. Mol Cancer 22, 83 (2023).
- Wagner, S., Bohlen, J., Herrmannova, A. et al. Selective footprinting of 40S and 80S ribosome subpopulations (Sel-TCP-seq) to study translation and its control. Nat Protoc 17, 2139–2187 (2022).
- PA Mateos, AJ Sethi, A Ravindran, M Guarnacci, A Srivastava, J Xu, Simultaneous identification of m6A and m5C reveals coordinated RNA modification at single-molecule resolution. bioRxiv, 2022.03. 14.484124 (2022).
- A Horvath, Y Janapala, RD Hannan, E Eyras, T Preiss, NE Shirokikh, Diffusional variance-determined stochastic translation efficiency. bioRxiv, 2022.03. 13.483370.
- PA Mateos, AJ Sethi, M Guarnacci, A Ravindran, A Srivastava, J Xu, Identification of m6A and m5C RNA modifications at single-molecule resolution from Nanopore sequencing. bioRxiv (Mar. 2022) 14.
- T Sibbritt, U Schumann, A Shafik, M Guarnacci, SJ Clark, T Preiss, Target-Specific Profiling of RNA m5C Methylation Level Using Amplicon Sequencing. Post-Transcriptional Gene Regulation, 375-392 (2022).
- Y Janapala, K Woodward, J Lee, M Rug, T Preiss, NE Shirokikh, Rapid In Vivo Fixation and Isolation of Translational Complexes from Eukaryotic Cells. JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments), e62639 (2021).
- J Hayashi, J Ton, S Negi, DEKM Stephens, DL Pountney, T Preiss, The effect of oxidized dopamine on the structure and molecular chaperone function of the small heat-shock proteins, αB-crystallin and Hsp27. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 22 (7), 3700 (2021).
- Wagner S, Herrmannová A, Hronová V et al 2020 Selective Translation Complex Profiling Reveals Staged Initiation and Co-translational Assembly of Initiation Factor Complexes. Mol Cell, 79(4):546–560.e7
- Schumann U, Zhang HN, Sibbritt T et al 2020 Multiple links between 5-methylcytosine content of mRNA and translation. BMC Biol18:40
- Janin M, Ortiz-Barahona V, Castro de Moura M, et al 2019 Epigenetic Loss of Ribosomal RNA Methyltransferase NSUN5 in Glioma Drives a Stress Adaptive Translational Program. Acta Neuropathol, 2019; 135:601.
- Sen ND, Gupta N, Archer S, et al 2019 Functional interplay between DEAD-box RNA helicases Ded1 and Dbp1 in preinitiation complex attachment and scanning on structured mRNAs in vivo. Nucleic Acids Res ; 83:779.
- Ragan C, Goodall GJ, Shirokikh NE*, Preiss T*. 2019 Insights into the biogenesis and potential functions of exonic circular RNA. Sci Rep ; 9(1): 2048.
- Shirokikh NE, Dutikova J, Staroverova M, Hannan R, Preiss T. 2019 Migration of small ribosomal subunits on the 5' untranslated regions of capped messenger RNA Int J Mol Sci 20(18):4464.
- Bommer UA, Preiss T. Neue RNA-Moleküle und die Regulation der Genexpression auf Translationsebene. [New RNA molecules and regulation of gene expression at the level of translation.] BIOspektrum 2019; 25(3):350-351
- Janapala Y, Preiss T, ShirokikhN. 2019 Control of translation at the initiation phase during glucose starvation in yeast. Int J Mol Sci; 20(16):E4043.
- Swaminathan A, Harrison PA, Preiss T, Beilharz TH. 2019 PAT-Seq: A method for simultaneous quantitation of gene expression, poly(A)-site selection and poly(A)-length distribution in yeast transcriptomes. In: Oliver SG, Castrillo JI, eds. Methods Mol Biol
- Faunce, T, Ray, A, Gardiner, C et al 2018, 'Regulating RNA Research and CRISPR Gene Drives to Combat Biosecurity Threats', Journal of Law and Medicine, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 208-213.
Hentze, MW, Castello, A, Schwarzl, T et al 2018, 'A brave new world of RNA-binding proteins', Nature Reviews: Molecular Cell Biology, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 327-341.
- Shirokikh NE, Archer SK, Beilharz TH, Powell D and Preiss T (2017) Translation complex profile sequencing to study the in vivo dynamics of mRNA-ribosome interactions during translation initiation, elongation and termination. Nature Protocols 12:697–731
- Shafik, A, Schumann, U, Evers, M et al 2016, 'The emerging epitranscriptomics of long noncoding RNAs', Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms, vol. 1859, no. 1, pp. 59-70.