Sebastian
Markmiller

Post-Doctoral Fellow Alumni
Cellular and Molecular Medicine
smarkmiller at ucsd.edu

Degrees

Ph.D. Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, 2011
M.S. in Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Heidelberg, Germany, 2006
B.S. in Molecular Biotechnology, University of Heidelberg, Germany, 2004

Summary

Sebastian received his B.S. in Molecular Biotechnology in 2004 and his M.S. in Molecular and Cell Biology in 2006 from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. After having worked with various vertebrate developmental model systems, including drosophila, medaka and zebrafish at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) during his masters degree, he moved to Melbourne, Australia, to join the lab of Dr. Joan Heath at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR). During his graduate studies he cloned and characterized a novel zebrafish mutant with defects in endodermal organ development caused by a deficiency in the U12-type splicing factor rnpc3. Using a combination of biochemistry and genome-wide gene expression analysis, his works presents the first characterization of defective U12-type splicing on a genome-wide scale, proposes additional functions for rnpc3 in the U12-type spliceosome and describes the first link between U12-type splicing deficiency and human cancer. In the Yeo lab, Sebastian, continues to study mRNA processing, but now focuses on the link between mRNA metabolism and neurodegenerative diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). He also has a keen interest in implementing innovative methods such as metabolic labeling of mRNA and genetic engineering with TALE nucleases.

Publications

  • Luo EC, Nathanson JL, Tan FE, Schwartz JL, Schmok JC, Shankar A, Markmiller S, Yee BA, Sathe S, Pratt GA, Scaletta DB, Ha Y, Hill DE, Aigner S, Yeo GW. Large-scale tethered function assays identify factors that regulate mRNA stability and translation. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, 2020.

  • Markmiller S, Fulzele A, Higgins R, Leonard M, Yeo GW§, Bennett EJ§. Active Protein Neddylation or Ubiquitylation Is Dispensable for Stress Granule Dynamics. Cell Reports, 2019 (§ co-corresponding)

  • Markmiller S, Soltanieh S, Server KL, Mak R, Jin W, Fang MY, Luo E-C, Krach F, Yang D, Sen A, Fulzele A, Wozniak J, Gonzalez DJ, Kankel MW, Gao F-B, Bennet EJ, Lecuyer E, Yeo GW. Context-dependent and disease-specific diversity in protein interactions within Stress Granules. Cell, 2018

  • Batra R, Nelles DA, Pirie E, Blue SM, Marina RJ, Wang H, Chaim IA, Thomas JD, Zhang N, Nguyen V, Aigner S, Markmiller S, Xia G, Corbett KD, Swanson MS, Yeo GW.Elimination of Toxic Microsatellite Repeat Expansion RNA by RNA-Targeting Cas9.Cell. 2017 Aug 24;170(5):899-912.e10. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.07.010.

  • Lardelli RM, Schaffer AE, Eggens VR, Zaki MS, Grainger S, Sathe S, Van Nostrand EL, Schlachetzki Z, Rosti B, Akizu N, Scott E, Silhavy JL, Heckman LD, Rosti RO, Dikoglu E, Gregor A, Guemez-Gamboa A, Musaev D, Mande R, Widjaja A, Shaw TL, Markmiller S, Marin-Valencia I, Davies JH, de Meirleir L, Kayserili H, Altunoglu U, Freckmann ML, Warwick L, Chitayat D, Blaser S, Çağlayan AO, Bilguvar K, Per H, Fagerberg C, Christesen HT, Kibaek M, Aldinger KA, Manchester D, Matsumoto N, Muramatsu K, Saitsu H, Shiina M, Ogata K, Foulds N, Dobyns WB, Chi NC, Traver D, Spaccini L, Bova SM, Gabriel SB, Gunel M, Valente EM, Nassogne MC, Bennett EJ, Yeo GW, Baas F, Lykke-Andersen J, Gleeson JG. Biallelic mutations in the 3’ exonuclease TOE1 cause pontocerebellar hypoplasia and uncover a role in snRNA processing. Nat Genet. 2017 Mar;49(3):457-464. doi: 10.1038/ng.3762.

  • Nelles DA, Fang MY, O’Connell MR, Xu JL, Markmiller SJ, Doudna JA, Yeo GW. Programmable RNA Tracking in Live Cells with CRISPR/Cas9. Cell. 2016 Apr 7;165(2):488-96. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.02.054.

  • Markmiller S, Cloonan N, Lardelli RM, Doggett K, Keightley MC, Boglev Y,Trotter AJ, Ng AY, Wilkins SJ, Verkade H, Ober EA, Field HA, Grimmond SM,Lieschke GJ, Stainier DY, Heath JK. Minor class splicing shapes the zebrafishtranscriptome during development. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Feb25;111(8):3062-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1305536111.

  • Lagier-Tourenne C, Baughn M, Rigo F, Sun S, Liu P, Li HR, Jiang J, Watt AT, Chun S, Katz M, Qiu J, Sun Y, Ling SC, Zhu Q, Polymenidou M, Drenner K, Artates JW, McAlonis-Downes M, Markmiller S, Hutt KR, Pizzo DP, Cady J, Harms MB, Baloh RH, Vandenberg SR, Yeo GW, Fu XD, Bennett CF, Cleveland DW, Ravits J. Targeted degradation of sense and antisense C9orf72 RNA foci as therapy for ALS and frontotemporal degeneration. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Nov 19;110(47):E4530-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1318835110.

  • Keightley MC, Crowhurst MO, Layton JE, Beilharz T, Markmiller S, Varma S, Hogan BM, de Jong-Curtain TA, Heath JK, Lieschke GJ. In vivo mutation of pre-mRNA processing factor 8 (Prpf8) affects transcript splicing, cell survival and myeloid differentiation. FEBS Lett. 2013 Jul 11;587(14):2150-7. doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2013.05.030.

  • Boglev Y, Badrock AP, Trotter AJ, Du Q, Richardson EJ, Parslow AC, Markmiller SJ, Hall NE, de Jong-Curtain TA, Ng AY, Verkade H, Ober EA, Field HA, Shin D,Shin CH, Hannan KM, Hannan RD, Pearson RB, Kim SH, Ess KC, Lieschke GJ, Stainier DY, Heath JK. Autophagy induction is a Tor- and Tp53-independent cell survival response in a zebrafish model of disrupted ribosome biogenesis. PLoS Genet. 2013;9(2):e1003279. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003279.