SABARI LAB
Laboratory of Nuclear Organization
We study how biomolecular condensates organize gene regulation
RESEARCH
Our primary goal is to understand how the gene control machinery is organized within the nucleus. Many nuclear processes have been found to operate within dynamic local concentrations termed biomolecular condensates. We study how nuclear condensates form at specific genomic loci, how they function once formed, and how they are misappropriated in disease.
Condensates form by the ensemble weak-multivalent and structured interactions among RNA, DNA, and protein molecules, which enable high local concentrations at specific genomic loci. This provides a means to dynamically organize macromolecular resources, allowing the cell to create on-demand and reversible local concentrations of functionally related proteins.
We are specifically interested in investigating 1) the role of intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) found on many transcription and chromatin factors in condensate formation, 2) how the combination of hard-wired DNA sequence and dynamically-regulated chromatin states work together to seed and scaffold condensates, and 3) how nuclear condensates dynamically regulate their composition to create specialized reaction centers.
Protein Disorder
Multivalency in DNA Sequence
and Chromatin States
Nuclear Condensate Specialization
LAB MEMBERS
Assistant Professor
CPRIT Scholar
​
Postdoc at Whitehead Institute/MIT
Ph.D. from Rockefeller University
B.S. from University of Rochester
Kathleen McGlynn Tucker
Senior Research Associate​
M.S. from Auburn University
B.S. from Auburn University
​
Prashant Pradhan
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi
M.S. from South Asian University
B.S. from University of Delhi
​
Mikayla Eppert
Graduate Student
​
B.A. from University of Iowa
​
Shubham Vashishtha
Postdoctoral Fellow
​
Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi
M. Tech from Jaypee University of Information
B. Tech from Jaypee University of Information
​
XIang Li
Postdoctoral Fellow
​
Ph.D. from SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY
M.Sc. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
B.S. Sun Yat-sen University Guangdong, China
​
Victor Billon
Postdoctoral Fellow
​
Ph.D. from Université Côte d’Azur, Nice
M.S. from École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay
B.S. from École Normale Supérieure de Cachan and Université Paris XI
​
Previous lab members
Heankel Lyons (Graduate Student)
Currently a postdoc with Aaron Gitler at Stanford
Nancy De La Cruz (Research Assistant)
Currently a graduate student with Ashley Solomonson at UTSW
Christy Fornero (Senior Research Associate)
Currently a lab course coordinator in Illinois
Reshma Veettil (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Currently a postdoc with Sean Morrison at UTSW
Lab photos
PUBLICATIONS
Vashishtha S and Sabari. (2025). Disordered Regions of Condensate-promoting Proteins Have Distinct Molecular Signatures Associated with Cellular Function. Journal of Molecular Biology. Online ahead of print
​
Ahn JH,* Guo Y*, Lyons H*, Makintosh SG, Lau BK, Edmondson RD, Byrum SD, Storey AJ, Tackett AJ, Cai L†, Sabari BR†, Wang GG†. (2025). The phenylalanine-and-glycine repeats of NUP98 oncofusions form condensates that selectively partition transcriptional coactivators. Molecular Cell online ahead of print
​
Sabari BR*, Hyman AA*, Hnisz D*. Functional specificity in biomolecular condensates revealed by genetic complementation. Nature Reviews Genetics (2024).
​
Pei G, Lyons H, Li P*, Sabari BR*. Regulation of transcription by biomolecular condensates in physiology and disease. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2024).
​
De La Cruz N*, Pradhan P*, Veettil RT*, Conti BA, Oppikofer M, Sabari BR. (2024). Disorder-mediated interactions target proteins to specific condensates. Molecular Cell 84, 3497-3512
​
​Gan P*, Eppert M*, De La Cruz N, Lyons H, Shah AM, Veettil RT, Chen K, Pradhan P, Bezprozvannaya S, Xu L, Liu N, Olson EN & Sabari BR. (2024). Coactivator condensation drives cardiovascular cell lineage specification. Science Advances 10, eadk7160.
Lyons H*, Veettil RT*, Pradhan P*, Fornero C, De La Cruz N, Ito K, Eppert M, Roeder RG, Sabari BR. (2023). Functional partitioning of transcriptional regulators by patterned charge blocks. Cell 186
​
Eppert M, Sabari BR. (2022). Context is key: Modulated protein multivalency is disease. Molecular Cell 82, 3965-3967
​
Cantu Oliveros (Lyons) H, Sabari BR. (2021). Disordered and dead, but in good company: How a catalytically inactive UTX retains its function. Molecular Cell 18, 4577-4578.
​
Sabari BR. (2020). Biomolecular condensates and gene activation in development and disease. Developmental Cell 55, 84-96​