Min Seung Choi

All Publications

• Accelerated epigenetic ageing and altered stability of DNA methylation detected in adult British-Bangladeshi women exposed to elevated infectious disease loads in childhood Stager, R., Leeman, G., Choi, M., Emes, R. D., Begum, K., Melamed, P., Bentley, G. R. WILEY. 2020: 277

  View details for Web of Science ID 000513288903109

• Cortical Observation by Synchronous Multifocal Optical Sampling Reveals Widespread Population Encoding of Actions. Neuron Kauvar, I. V., Machado, T. A., Yuen, E., Kochalka, J., Choi, M., Allen, W. E., Wetzstein, G., Deisseroth, K. 2020

  Abstract

  To advance the measurement of distributed neuronal population representations of targeted motor actions on single trials, we developed an optical method (COSMOS) for tracking neural activity in a largely uncharacterized spatiotemporal regime. COSMOS allowed simultaneous recording of neural dynamics at ∼30 Hz from over a thousand near-cellular resolution neuronal sources spread across the entire dorsal neocortex of awake, behaving mice during a three-option lick-to-target task. We identified spatially distributed neuronal population representations spanning the dorsal cortex that precisely encoded ongoing motor actions on single trials. Neuronal correlations measured at video rate using unaveraged, whole-session data had localized spatial structure, whereas trial-averaged data exhibited widespread correlations. Separable modes of neural activity encoded history-guided motor plans, with similar population dynamics in individual areas throughout cortex. These initial experiments illustrate how COSMOS enables investigation of large-scale cortical dynamics and that information about motor actions is widely shared between areas, potentially underlying distributed computations.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2020.04.023

  View details for PubMedID 32433908

• Epigenetic memory via concordant DNA methylation is inversely correlated to developmental potential of mammalian cells PLOS GENETICS Choi, M., Genereux, D. P., Goodson, J., Al-Azzawi, H., Allain, S. Q., Simon, N., Palasek, S., Ware, C. B., Cavanaugh, C., Miller, D. G., Johnson, W. C., Sinclair, K. D., Stoger, R., Laird, C. D. 2017; 13 (11): e1007060

  Abstract

  In storing and transmitting epigenetic information, organisms must balance the need to maintain information about past conditions with the capacity to respond to information in their current and future environments. Some of this information is encoded by DNA methylation, which can be transmitted with variable fidelity from parent to daughter strand. High fidelity confers strong pattern matching between the strands of individual DNA molecules and thus pattern stability over rounds of DNA replication; lower fidelity confers reduced pattern matching, and thus greater flexibility. Here, we present a new conceptual framework, Ratio of Concordance Preference (RCP), that uses double-stranded methylation data to quantify the flexibility and stability of the system that gave rise to a given set of patterns. We find that differentiated mammalian cells operate with high DNA methylation stability, consistent with earlier reports. Stem cells in culture and in embryos, in contrast, operate with reduced, albeit significant, methylation stability. We conclude that preference for concordant DNA methylation is a consistent mode of information transfer, and thus provides epigenetic stability across cell divisions, even in stem cells and those undergoing developmental transitions. Broader application of our RCP framework will permit comparison of epigenetic-information systems across cells, developmental stages, and organisms whose methylation machineries differ substantially or are not yet well understood.

  View details for DOI 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007060

  View details for Web of Science ID 000416836900008

  View details for PubMedID 29107996

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC5690686