Staff: Artur Choroś, Agnieszka Chwedorowicz (PhD student), Iwona Czaban (PhD student), Agnieszka Czechowska (PhD student), Hubert Doleżyczek, Joanna Dzwonek, Ana Martin Gonzales (PhD student), Dagmara Holm (PhD student), Elżbieta Januszewicz, Patrycja Kruk (PhD student), Katarzyna Krawczyk (PhD student), Adriana Magalska, Monika Malinowska, Gabriela Olech-Kochańczyk (PhD student), Katarzyna Pels, Anna Skupień (PhD student), Andrzej Szczepankiewicz, Paweł Trzaskoma (PhD student)

Research profile:

Our research interest focuses on the structural and functional plasticity of the nervous system, in both health and disease. We study phenomena occurring at various levels of organization, including anatomical sub-structures of the brain, the nervous tissue with all its cellular constituents, subcellular-, and macromolecular levels. One major issue that we investigate is the role of neuronal nuclear structure and immediate-early gene expression in learning and behaviour, and in epileptogenesis. Another major project focuses on the role of the extracellular matrix receptors in synaptic plasticity in the brain, this also involves studies of pathological plasticity occurring in various forms of epilepsy. We are also interested in advances of microscopy and tissue-visualization techniques. We cooperate extensively with several groups in the Nencki Institute and at the Jackson Laboratories USA, University of Bergen, Norway, Institute of Neurobiology, Alicante, Spain.

Current research activities:

• investigation of the neuronal nuclear architecture in plasticity and epileptogenesis
• studies on the role of CD44, an adhesion and signaling receptor, in neural plasticity.

Selected publications:

Roszkowska M., Skupien A., Wójtowicz T., Konopka A., Gorlewicz A., Kisiel M., Bekisz M., Ruszczycki B., Dolezyczek H., Rejmak E., Knapska E., Mozrzymas J.W., Wlodarczyk J., Wilczynski G.M., Dzwonek J. (2016) CD44 – a novel synaptic cell adhesion molecule regulating structural and functional plasticity of dendritic spines. Mol Biol Cell, 27(25): 4055-4066.

Tang Z., Luo O.J., Li X., Zheng M., Zhu J.J,. Szalaj P., Trzaskoma P., Magalska A., Wlodarczyk J., Ruszczycki B., Michalski P., Piecuch E., Wang P., Wang D., Tian S.Z., Penrad-Mobayed M., Sachs L.M., Ruan X., Wei C.L., Liu E.T., Wilczynski G.M., Plewczynski D., Li G., Ruan Y. (2015) CTCF-Mediated Human 3D Genome Architecture Reveals Chromatin Topology for Transcription. Cell, 163(7):1611-1627.

Ito S., Magalska A., Alcaraz-Iborra M., Lopez-Atalaya J.P., Rovira V., Contreras-Moreira B., Lipinski M., Olivares R., Martinez-Hernandez J., Ruszczycki B., Lujan R., Geijo-Barrientos E., Wilczynski G.M., Barco A. (2014) Loss of neuronal 3D chromatin organization causes transcriptional and behavioural deficits related to serotonergic dysfunction. Nat Commun, 5: 4450.

Skupien A., Konopka A., Trzaskoma P., Labus J., Gorlewicz A., Swiech L., Babraj M., Dolezyczek H., Figiel I., Ponimaskin E., Wlodarczyk J., Jaworski J., Wilczynski G.M., Dzwonek J. (2014) CD44 regulates dendrite morphogenesis through Src tyrosine kinase-dependent positioning of the Golgi apparatus. J Cell Sci, 127(23): 5038-5051.

Walczak A., Szczepankiewicz A.A., Ruszczycki B., Magalska A., Zamlynska K., Dzwonek J., Wilczek E., Zybura-Broda K., Rylski M., Malinowska M., Dabrowski M., Szczepinska T., Pawlowski K., Pyskaty M., Wlodarczyk J., Szczerbal I., Switonski M., Cremer M., Wilczynski G.M. (2013) Novel higher-order epigenetic regulation of the Bdnf gene upon seizures. J Neurosci, 33(6): 2507-2511.