Influence of gene overlaps on the precision of gene expression during development

My team aims at understanding how an animal can develop in a highly accurate manner, robust to internal and environmental perturbations. We use C. elegans as a biological model, an excellent system to study precision and robustness. Here I will present a study on the effect of the physical overlap between genes on the precision of gene expression. Using a combination of single-cell RNA-seq data analysis, single-molecule FISH and in vivo imaging of transcription, we characterize how the presence of nested genes influences the expression of their host genes.