About Thomas Graf

Thomas Graf has shown that tweaking transcription factors can switch cells' identity within the blood system, and that this happens through an alteration of the balance between key regulators that antagonize each other. He leads the program on differentiation and cancer at the Centre of Genomic Regulation in Barcelona.

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• Thomas Graf: Cellular identity and transdifferentiation

Featured expert's recommendations

• Directed transdifferentiation

• Expression of a single transfected cDNA converts fibroblasts to myoblasts
  In perhaps the first example of reprogramming, this paper shows mouse embryonic fibroblasts become muscle precursors after the introduction of a single gene normally expressed in proliferating muscle cells
  Davis, R. L., Weintraub, H. & Lassar, A. B. Cell 51, 987-1000 (1987)

• GATA-1 reprograms avian myelomonocytic cell lines into eosinophils, thromboblasts, and erythroblasts
  This research shows that forced expression of a gene active in early blood progenitors can make differentiated cells turn to earlier lineages
  Kulessa, H., Frampton, J. & Graf, T. Genes Dev. 9, 1250-1262 (1995)

• Making eosinophils through subtle shifts in transcription factor expression
  This review describes how an interplay between different factors can be used to reprogram mouse and human white blood cells
  McNagny, K. & Graf, T. J. Exp. Med. 195, F43-F47 (2002)

• Stepwise reprogramming of B cells into macrophages
  This work demonstrates how forced gene expression remodels a transcription factor network to convert differentiated B cells into macrophages
  Xie, H., Ye, M., Feng, R. & Graf, T. Cell 117, 663-676 (2004)

• In vivo reprogramming of adult pancreatic exocrine cells to β-cells
  This paper shows that one cell type can be converted to another by a combination of transcription factors in vivo
  Zhou, Q. et al. Nature 455, 627-632 (2008)

• Transcription factor antagonism

• Hematopoietic development: a balancing act
  This review describes how, as cells take on various fates, lineage-specific transcription factors antagonize each other
  Cantor, A. B. & Orkin, S. H. Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 11, 513-519 (2001)

• Differentiation plasticity of hematopoietic cells
  This review discusses a model of lineage specification that is based on the stoichiometry of antagonistically acting transcription factors
  Graf, T. Blood 99, 3089-3101 (2002)

• SnapShot: Hematopoiesis
  This diagram shows the lineage of blood cells from embryo to adult and from haematopoietic stem cells to fully differentiated ones
  Orkin, S. H. & Zon, L. I. Cell 132, 712 (2008)