Faithful inheritance of chromatin states is essential for preserving gene expression patterns and genome integrity. Juntao is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms on how chromatin maintains its epigenetic information during essential biological processes, including chromosomal duplication, transcription and other genome-wide chromatin remodeling events such as histone-to-protamine transition in male germline.

Juntao's Ph.D. thesis work uncovered a novel function of replication checkpoint factor Mrc1/CLASPIN in epigenetic inheritance by distributing parental histones to both daughter DNA strands. Mechanistically, Mrc1/CLASPIN contains a conserved histone H3-H4 tetramer binding domain that locates at the center of replication fork, independently from its checkpoint motifs. Together with other replisome-associated histone chaperones, his thesis work suggests that replisome contains multiple intermediate sites for parental histone recycling. (Yu et al., PMID: 39094570, 2024).

Adult stem cells undergo asymmetric cell division, which generates a daughter stem cell and a differentiating progeny for tissue homeostasis. A fundamental unsolved question is how two daughter cells can adopt distinct cell fates during this process.

During asymmetric divisions of Drosophila male germline stem cell, sister chromatids undergo non-random segregation. This observation suggests that two genetically identical sister chromatids are created differently, potentially priming for cell fate decision. However, it remains unclear how the differences between sister chromatids are established and recognized by germline stem cells. Juntao's postdoc work wants to understand the molecular basis underlying non-random sister chromatid segregation (NRSS) and its role in cell fate specification and differentiation.