Robert
Middle Name
A
Waterland, Ph.D.
Middle Name
A
Picture
Positions
- Professor
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Pediatrics-Nutrition
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX, US
- Professor
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Molecular and Human Genetics
Baylor College of Medicine
- Professor
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USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center
Baylor College of Medicine
- Member
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Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas, United States
Education
- BS from Virginia Tech
- 05/1987 - Blacksburg, Virginia, United States
- Physics
- PhD from Cornell University
- 08/2000 - Ithaca, New York, United States
- Human Nutrition
- Postdoctoral Fellowship at Duke University
- 12/2003 - Durham, NC, United States
- Developmental Genetics
Professional Interests
- Environmental influences on mammalian developmental epigenetics
Professional Statement
Research in the Waterland laboratory aims to understand how nutrition and other environmental influences during prenatal and early postnatal development affect individual susceptibility to various diseases later in life. We are focused on nutritional influences on developmental epigenetics as a likely mediating mechanism.Epigenetic mechanisms are established during development to stably regulate tissue-specific patterns of gene expression. DNA methylation is of particular interest because mammalian one-carbon metabolism, which supplies the methyl groups for DNA methylation, is intimately dependent on dietary methyl donors and cofactors. We use various mouse models to investigate early nutritional influences on the developmental establishment of DNA methylation and associated phenotypes. We are also conducting human studies to identify persistent epigenetic changes associated with early nutritional exposures. We use genome-wide DNA methylation profiling, bioinformatic analysis, bisulfite pyrosequencing, and various gene expression assays.
Additionally, we are also investigating the role of epigenetic dysregulation in obesity. In particular, we are using mouse models to study whether maternal obesity and nutrition before and during pregnancy affect developmental epigenetics in the hypothalamus and, consequently, body weight regulation in her offspring.
Websites
Selected Publications
- Silver MJ, Kessler NJ, Hennig BJ, Dominguez-Salas P, Laritsky E, Baker MS, Coarfa C, Hernandez-Vargas H, Castelino JM, Routledge MN, Gong YY, Herceg Z, Lee YS, Lee K, Moore SE, Fulford AJ, Prentice AM, Waterland RA "Independent genomewide screens identify the tumor suppressor VTRNA2-1 as a human epiallele responsive to periconceptional environment." Genome Biol. 2015 June 11; 16 : 118. Pubmed PMID: 26062908
- Baker MS, Li G, Kohorst JJ, Waterland RA "Fetal growth restriction promotes physical inactivity and obesity in female mice.." Int J Obes (Lond). 2015 January ; 39 : 98-104. Pubmed PMID: 23924758
- Yu DH, Waterland RA, Zhang P, Schady D, Chen MH, Guan Y, Gadkari M, Shen L "Targeted p16(Ink4a) epimutation causes tumorigenesis and reduces survival in mice." J Clin Invest. 2014 September ; 124 (9): 3708-12. Pubmed PMID: 25061879
- Dominguez-Salas P, Moore SE, Baker MS, Bergen AW, Cox SE, Dyer RA, Fulford AJ, Guan Y, Laritsky E, Silver MJ, Swan GE, Zeisel SH, Innis SM, Waterland RA, Prentice AM, Hennig BJ "Maternal nutrition at conception modulates DNA methylation of human metastable epialleles." Nat Commun. 2014 April 29; 5 : 3746. Pubmed PMID: 24781383
- Kunde-Ramamoorthy G, Coarfa C, Laritsky E, Kessler NJ, Harris RA, Xu M, Chen R, Shen L, Milosavljevic A, Waterland RA "Comparison and quantitative verification of mapping algorithms for whole-genome bisulfite sequencing." Nucleic Acids Res. 2014 April ; 42 : e43. Pubmed PMID: 24391148
- Li G, Kohorst JJ, Zhang W, Laritsky E, Kunde-Ramamoorthy G, Baker MS, Fiorotto ML, Waterland RA "Early postnatal nutrition determines adult physical activity and energy expenditure in female mice.." Diabetes. 2013 62 (8): 2773-83. Pubmed PMID: 23545705
- Yu DH, Ware C, Waterland RA, Zhang J, Chen MH, Gadkari M, Kunde-Ramamoorthy G, Nosavanh LM, Shen L "Developmentally programmed 3' CpG island methylation confers tissue- and cell-type-specific transcriptional activation.." Mol. Cell. Biol.. 2013 May ; 33 (9): 1845-58. Pubmed PMID: 23459939
- Waterland RA, Kellermayer R, Laritsky E, Rayco-Solon P, Harris RA, Travisano M, Zhang W, Torskaya MS, Zhang J, Shen L, Manary MJ, Prentice AM "Season of conception in rural gambia affects DNA methylation at putative human metastable epialleles.." PLoS Genet.. 2010 6 (12): e1001252. Pubmed PMID: 21203497
- Harris RA, Wang T, Coarfa C, Nagarajan RP, Hong C, Downey SL, Johnson BE, Fouse SD, Delaney A, Zhao Y, Olshen A, Ballinger T, Zhou X, Forsberg KJ, Gu J, Echipare L, O'Geen H, Lister R, Pelizzola M, Xi Y, Epstein CB, Bernstein BE, Hawkins RD, Ren B, Chung "Comparison of sequencing-based methods to profile DNA methylation and identification of monoallelic epigenetic modifications.." Nat. Biotechnol.. 2010 October ; 28 (10): 1097-105. Pubmed PMID: 20852635
- Waterland RA, Travisano M, Tahiliani KG, Rached MT, Mirza S "Methyl donor supplementation prevents transgenerational amplification of obesity.." Int J Obes (Lond). 2008 September ; 32 (9): 1373-9. Pubmed PMID: 18626486
- Shen L, Kondo Y, Guo Y, Zhang J, Zhang L, Ahmed S, Shu J, Chen X, Waterland RA, Issa JP "Genome-wide profiling of DNA methylation reveals a class of normally methylated CpG island promoters.." PLoS Genet.. 2007 October ; 3 (10): 2023-36. Pubmed PMID: 17967063
- Waterland RA, Travisano M, Tahiliani KG "Diet-induced hypermethylation at agouti viable yellow is not inherited transgenerationally through the female.." FASEB J.. 2007 October ; 21 (12): 3380-5. Pubmed PMID: 17551099
- Waterland RA, Dolinoy DC, Lin JR, Smith CA, Shi X, Tahiliani KG "Maternal methyl supplements increase offspring DNA methylation at Axin Fused.." Genesis. 2006 September ; 44 (9): 401-6. Pubmed PMID: 16868943
- Waterland RA, Jirtle RL "Transposable elements: targets for early nutritional effects on epigenetic gene regulation.." Mol. Cell. Biol.. 2003 August ; 23 (15): 5293-300. Pubmed PMID: 12861015
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