Staff profiles

Dr Donald Macleod

Location: Darwin Building 407B
Telephone: 0131 650 5386
Email: Donald.Macleod@ed.ac.uk
Web-Site:

C.V.

Research groupings

Cell Biology

Teaching

I am a lecturer in all four years of the Biological Sciences Undergraduate Degree programme. I am also course organiser for Molecular Genetics 3 and Molecules, Genes and Cells 1.

Research interests

I am interested in DNA methylation and the role of this modification in gene regulation. The genomes of many animals and plants are highly methylated and we would like to understand how these patterns of methylation are determined during development. To do this we need to know how methylation is targeted to some regions of the genome yet other regions remain protected. One major goal is to discover how CpG islands remain methylation-free and what happens in cancer cells and the inactive X chromosome of female mammals where this protective mechanism no longer functions and many CpG islands become methylated.

Representative publications

Macleod, D., Charlton, J., Mullins, J and Bird, A.P. (1994) Sp1 sites in the mouse aprt gene promoter are required to prevent methylation of the CpG island. Genes and Dev. 8; 2282-2292.

Macleod, D. Clark, Victoria, H. and Bird, A. (1999). Genome-wide changes in DNA methylation do not take place during the development of the zebrafish. Nat. Gen. 23; 139-140.

Bird, A. and Macleod, D. (2004). Reading the DNA methylation signal. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. LXIX; 1-6.