Baby Epigenomes Thank You For Not SmokingOctober 10, 2011It’s no secret that smoking is bad, now new evidence shows that smoking during pregnancy could be very dangerous for a fetus. In a recent report, Baylor College of Medicine researchers found that moms who light up are also altering their babies’ epigenomes and transcriptomes. In some previous work, the scientists had only looked at […]
EpiGenie Review: Epigenetic Cancer Therapies and DiagnosticsOctober 10, 2011Nearly everyone has been affected by cancer in some way or another. That’s why we’re so stoked to see all of the amazing breakthroughs in cancer knowledge coming from epigenetic research these days. Will it lead to treatments or cures anytime soon? Who knows, but it sure seems like we’re on the right track. Just […]
Comparing Methylomes Reveals Evolutionary SecretsSeptember 28, 2011Your mother always told you never to compare yourself with others, but in the methylation game, comparisons can reveal lots of cool info. Researchers now report that by comparing the methylomes of eight species, they found out that the placement of the H3K36me3 mark in Drosophila actually predicts where DNA methylation happens in other invertebrates. […]
Epigenetic Instability Passes DNA Methylation Variation on to HeirsSeptember 15, 2011There are loads of things we’d hope to inherit from our parents, like intelligence, good looks or maybe even the family fortune, but we’re pretty sure altered DNA methylation wouldn’t make the list. No use worrying about that, though, since we can’t do much about it…and how often does that really happen anyway? A group […]
DNA Methylation Not So Identical in Schizophrenic TwinsSeptember 14, 2011Monozygotic (MZ), or identical, twins may seem like exact carbon copies of each other, but recent work has shown that epigenetic variation between them is common, even though they share an identical genome. Sometimes these small but significant epigenetic differences are suspected to lead to very different outcomes when it comes to psychiatric disorders like […]