Eguna: Friday, October 9th
Ordua: 12:00 PM
Lekua: Adela Moyua Conference Room (Faculty of Science and Technology, EHU).

Speaker: Sara Sdelci (Centre for Genomic Regulation, CRG)
Seminar Title: “Chromatin Beyond Epigenetics: A Metabolic Sponge at the Heart of the Cell”

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Sara Sdelci is an internationally recognized researcher working at the intersection of chromatin biology, genome regulation, epigenetics, and cellular metabolism. Over the past seven years, she has pioneered the emerging field of nuclear metabolism, demonstrating that metabolic enzymes are not merely cytoplasmic components but active regulators of chromatin function, influencing transcription, genome stability, DNA repair, cell identity, and therapeutic responses in cancer.

Her laboratory combines chromatin proteomics, metabolomics, quantitative imaging, CRISPR screening, and computational biology to dissect nuclear metabolic functions. Among her major contributions, her group performed the first chromatome-scale analyses across human tissues and cancer models, identifying approximately 250 chromatin-associated metabolic enzymes and revealing their highly dynamic and context-dependent interactions with chromatin. These studies uncovered fundamental roles for metabolic enzymes in transcriptional regulation, chromosome segregation, nuclear energy homeostasis, DNA repair, and cancer vulnerabilities.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Gañez-Zapater, Antoni et al. “Cell Cycle Control of Nuclear Metabolism Couples Phosphatidylinositol Signaling to Histone Methylation.” Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) vol. 13,34 (2026): e01083. doi:10.1002/advs.202501083

Kourtis, S et al. “Native chromatome profiling reveals hundreds of metabolic enzymes in the nucleus across tissues.” Nature communications vol. 17,1 1655. 6 Mar. 2026, doi:10.1038/s41467-026-69217-2

Ghose, Ritobrata et al. “Mitochondria-derived nuclear ATP surge protects against confinement-induced proliferation defects.” Nature communications vol. 16,1 6613. 30 Jul. 2025, doi:10.1038/s41467-025-61787-x

Espinar, Lorena et al. “Nuclear IMPDH2 controls the DNA damage response by modulating PARP1 activity.” Nature communications vol. 15,1 9515. 12 Nov. 2024, doi:10.1038/s41467-024-53877-z

Pardo-Lorente, Natalia et al. “Nuclear localization of MTHFD2 is required for correct mitosis progression.” Nature communications vol. 15,1 9529. 12 Nov. 2024, doi:10.1038/s41467-024-51847-z

Pascual-Reguant, Laura et al. “Interactions between BRD4S, LOXL2, and MED1 drive cell cycle transcription in triple-negative breast cancer.” EMBO molecular medicine vol. 15,12 (2023): e18459. doi:10.15252/emmm.202318459

Moretton, Amandine et al. “A metabolic map of the DNA damage response identifies PRDX1 in the control of nuclear ROS scavenging and aspartate availability.” Molecular systems biology vol. 19,7 (2023): e11267. doi:10.15252/msb.202211267

Sdelci, Sara et al. “MTHFD1 interaction with BRD4 links folate metabolism to transcriptional regulation.” Nature genetics vol. 51,6 (2019): 990-998. doi:10.1038/s41588-019-0413-z