Recent Studies
Recent studies from the Flemington lab include the development of data visualization and analysis software (e.g. Ungerleider and Flemington, BMC Bioinformatics 2019), the development of software to globally resolve complex transcript structures in high gene density genomes (O’Grady et al, Nucleic Acids Res, 2016), the discovery of new transcripts and transcript isoforms in EBV (O’Grady, Nucleic Acids Res, 2016) and murine herpesvirus 68 (MHV68, O’Grady et al, Cell Reports 2019), and the discovery of circular RNAs encoded by EBV (Ungerleider et al, Plos Pathogens 2018) and rhesus lymphocryptovirus (rLCV), Kaposi’s Sarcoma Herpesvirus (KSHV), and murine herpesvirus 68 (MHV68, Ungerleider et al, J Virol 2019 and Ungerleider et al, mBio 2019).
Current Focus
Following the establishment of latency, herpesviruses rely heavily on non-coding RNAs to modulate the host cell environment without eliciting overt adaptive immune responses and these virally encoded non-coding RNAs are likely key viral contributors to the tumor phenotype in gammaherpesvirus associated cancers. The current focus of the Flemington lab is to parse out the relative contributions of linear lncRNAs, circular lncRNAs, and miRNAs that are produced from a single complex transcriptional unit from the EBV BART locus in regulating of the host cell environment and in facilitating the tumor phenotype in EBV associated cancers.