4D-Transcription in Inflammation and Disease

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue “4D-Transcription in Inflammation and Disease” will focus on how cells modulate the transcriptional outcome in space and time to cope with ever-changing environments.

Over the last few decades, significant advances have been made in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms modulating gene expression in cells, tissues and cancer. More recently, the discovery of epigenetic regulation added a new layer of complexity, thus providing further tools to capture the regulatory flexibility and adaptation of gene transcription in physiologic and pathologic conditions. Of note, using epigenetic approaches some (epi)genetic diseases found an explanation and possibly a cure.

It goes without saying that cells live in complex environments and are exposed to continuous signaling due to both soluble molecules and cell-to-cell contacts. The selective pressures applied by the environment force the cell populations to adapt or perish. However, the overall knowledge gained in the gene regulation field mostly reflects static conditions, often accounts for only “one side of the coin”, relies on sparse non-coherent observations along the time axis or collected through non-appropriate experimental time-windows.

With high-throughput approaches based on RNA and DNA sequencing, it is now possible to have a closer view on how cells dynamically differentiate the transcriptional output upon specific environmental cues. Moreover, RNA and DNA sequences at the single-cell level can provide integrated data of co-existing populations.

Since pathologic conditions like inflammation and cancer are driven by functional interactions of several cell types, in which the endogenous hardwired transcriptional circuits are either over-activated, repressed or hijacked to cope with aggressive extrinsic changes or intrinsic genetic mutations, an extended and integrated view of regulatory mechanisms would be desirable in order to find new therapies.

Therefore, the scope of this Special Issue is to collect contributions to improve our understanding of the dynamic regulation of gene expressions in healthy, damaged or cancer cells and tissues in response to changing local conditions that are critical for the survival of organisms. Contributions should focus on dynamic molecular synergies of gene regulatory sequences, on the evolution in time and space of enhancer-promoter contacts, epigenetic modifications and large-scale arrangements and interactions of chromosome territories to fine-tune transcriptional responses and set new epigenetic configurations. In addition, contributions that explain how a single transcription factor (NF-kappaB, STATs, etc.)  can univocally activate a selected transcriptional output in response to a specific signaling input out of many possible options (cytokines, grow factors, etc.) are most welcome.

We will be happy to accept

• Original research papers reporting advances in the field
• Educated reviews on published data
• Critical discussions able to provide new interpretations,

We hope to set the curiosity of our readers in motion and raise new questions that are vital to foster progression.

Dr. Alessandra Agresti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomedicines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Histones and nucleosomes: Sense and anti-sense transcription
• Gene expression control
• Regulatory mechanisms
• Chromatin
• Inflammation: Cancer
• Genetic diseases