Dr. Tünde Nyikó - MATE Research
Overview
Dr. Nyikó Tünde research focuses on epigenetic regulation of tomato trichome development. She has strong technical and theoretical knowledge of the broad field of plant genetics, epigenetics, RNA quality control pathways and other gene regulation systems. She has daily experience in powerful new techniques, like CRISPR/CAS9-, and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) systems. She authored and co-authored 12 research articles in high quality scientific journals. She won the „Bolyai János Felllowship” awarded by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and she spent three months with an "EMBO Short-term Fellowship" in the world-renowned laboratory of Professor Sir David Baulcombe in Cambridge University, where she got new insights into the actual problems of plant epigenetics.
Research keywords:
Publications
Epigenetic Regulation of tomato trichome development. Trichomes (hairs) provide chemical and mechanical barrier against insect pests and diverse environmental influences (light intensity). However, the molecular background of tomato trichome development is less known. The formation/number of trichomes are highly influenced by environmental factors, known to affect the regulation of genes through epigenetics. Nevertheless, our results are one of the first scientific study to demonstrate that trichome development is epigenetically regulated. Understanding the epigenetic regulation of trichome development, not only reveal an important and unique molecular regulation, but we can also help breeders to create more resistant, healthy tomato varieties. Indeed, tomatoes with more hairs are more resistant to pests do not requiring intensive chemical treatments therefore it can be produced in a consumer-friendly and eco-friendly way.
Nyikó, T., Gyula, P., Ráth, S., Sós-Hegedűs, A., Csorba, T., Abbas, S.H., Bóka, K., Pettkó-Szandtner, A., Móricz, Á.M., Molnár, B.P., Erdei, A.L. and Szittya, G. (2025), INCREASED DNA METHYLATION 3 forms a potential chromatin remodelling complex with HAIRPLUS to regulate DNA methylation and trichome development in tomato. Plant J, 121: e70085. https://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.70085
Yue Fei, Tünde Nyikó, Attila Molnar, Non-perfectly matching small RNAs can induce stable and heritable epigenetic modifications and can be used as molecular markers to trace the origin and fate of silencing RNAs, Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 49, Issue 4, 26 February 2021, Pages 1900–1913, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkab023
Identification of amino acid residues in the Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) 2b protein responsible for its strong viral supressor activity. We would like to determine the molecular mechanism of the silencing suppressor protein 2b of an important tomato pathogen, cucumber mosaic virus (CMV). Suppressors produced by viruses inhibit the plant defense (RNA silencing) system, therefore understanding the function of these suppressors (how they inhibit the plant immune response) will facilitate the creation of tomato lines more resistant to viruses.
Tünde Nyikó, Andor Auber, Levente Szabadkai, Anna Benkovics, Mariann Auth, Zsuzsanna Mérai, Zoltán Kerényi, Andrea Dinnyés, Ferenc Nagy, Dániel Silhavy, Expression of the eRF1 translation termination factor is controlled by an autoregulatory circuit involving readthrough and nonsense-mediated decay in plants, Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 45, Issue 7, 20 April 2017, Pages 4174–4188, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkw1303
Nyikó, T., Sonkoly, B., Mérai, Z. et al. Plant upstream ORFs can trigger nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in a size-dependent manner. Plant Mol Biol 71, 367 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-009-9528-4
Tünde Nyikó, Farkas Kerényi, Levente Szabadkai, Anna H. Benkovics, Péter Major, Boglárka Sonkoly, Zsuzsanna Mérai, Endre Barta, Emilia Niemiec, Joanna Kufel, Dániel Silhavy, Plant nonsense-mediated mRNA decay is controlled by different autoregulatory circuits and can be induced by an EJC-like complex, Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 41, Issue 13, 1 July 2013, Pages 6715–6728, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkt366
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