Andrew S. Belmont

About

Andrew S. Belmont is a professor of Cell & Developmental Biology, Biophysics, and Quantitative Biology at the University of Illinois. His research focuses on chromatin structure, gene regulation, and nuclear architecture. Belmont's laboratory investigates how 10 and 30 nm chromatin fibers fold into interphase and mitotic chromosomes, how interphase chromosomes are moved and positioned within nuclei, and the implications of these processes for DNA functions such as transcription and replication. His team employs molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, and microscopy techniques to visualize nuclear positioning and folding dynamics of specific chromosome regions and gene loci, relating these to gene expression regulation. Belmont has developed methods for tagging specific gene loci in live cells using operator repeats and CRISPR-based approaches, enabling detailed studies of gene loci behavior. His work has revealed that different large-scale chromatin compaction states are tightly correlated with nuclear positioning and that directed, long-range chromosome movements are coupled to transcriptional activation. Recently, his research has focused on the relationship between gene expression and nuclear genome positioning relative to nuclear speckles and other nuclear condensates, utilizing innovative genomic and microscopy methods such as TSA-seq to map genome-wide nuclear distances. Belmont's contributions have advanced understanding of nuclear organization and its influence on…

Research topics

• Genetics
• Biology
• Computational biology
• Physics
• Cell biology

Selected publications

• TSA-seq reveals a largely conserved genome organization relative to nuclear speckles with small position changes tightly correlated with gene expression changes

  Genome Research · 2020 · 150 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  activation. Our results demonstrate a largely "hardwired" genome organization with specific genes moving small mean distances relative to speckles during cell differentiation or a physiological transition, suggesting an important role of nuclear speckles in gene expression regulation.

  DOI

• SPIN reveals genome-wide landscape of nuclear compartmentalization

  Genome biology · 2021 · 133 citations

  We report SPIN, an integrative computational method to reveal genome-wide intranuclear chromosome positioning and nuclear compartmentalization relative to multiple nuclear structures, which are pivotal for modulating genome function. As a proof-of-principle, we use SPIN to integrate nuclear compartment mapping (TSA-seq and DamID) and chromatin interaction data (Hi-C) from K562 cells to identify 10 spatial compartmentalization states genome-wide relative to nuclear speckles, lamina, and putative…

  DOI

• Nuclear Compartments: An Incomplete Primer to Nuclear Compartments, Bodies, and Genome Organization Relative to Nuclear Architecture

  Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology · 2021 · 109 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  This work reviews nuclear compartments, defined broadly to include distinct nuclear structures, bodies, and chromosome domains. It first summarizes original cytological observations before comparing concepts of nuclear compartments emerging from microscopy versus genomic approaches and then introducing new multiplexed imaging approaches that promise in the future to meld both approaches. I discuss how previous models of radial distribution of chromosomes or the binary division of the genome into…

  DOI

• Spatial and temporal organization of the genome: Current state and future aims of the 4D nucleome project

  Molecular Cell · 2023-07-06 · 96 citations

  reviewOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nucleome Browser: an integrative and multimodal data navigation platform for 4D Nucleome

  Nature Methods · 2022-07-21 · 28 citations

  letterOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01GM098319

  NIH · $1.1M · 2017

• Multiscale Analyses of 4D Nucleome Structure and Function by Comprehensive Multimodal Data Integration

  NIH · $10.4M · 2020–2026

• Biological Validation Development

  NIH · $16.6M · 2022

Frequent coauthors

• Bas van Steensel

  The Netherlands Cancer Institute

  72 shared

• Liguo Zhang

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  71 shared

• Jian Ma

  69 shared

• Yang Zhang

  San Diego Biomedical Research Institute

  66 shared

• Yuchuan Wang

  San Diego Biomedical Research Institute

  64 shared

• Tom van Schaik

  Oncode Institute

  64 shared

• David M. Gilbert

  San Diego Biomedical Research Institute

  61 shared

• Omid Gholamalamdari

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  58 shared

Labs

• Belmont LabPI

Awards & honors

• School of MCB faculty and staff awards

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