DNA Methylation Affinity Methods Come With Some BaggageNovember 19, 2010If you sometimes wonder about the quality of data coming from today’s popular affinity-based DNA methylation analysis methods, you‘re not alone. In fact, researchers at Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney Australia decided to do something about it by studying the techniques and learning that methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) and methyl-CpG binding domain-based capture […]
Epimutation: The New Risk Factor on the BRCA1 BlockNovember 18, 2010BRCA1, (breast cancer susceptibility gene 1), is involved in repairing damaged DNA or destroying cells when the DNA is beyond repair. Women with mutations in the BRCA1 gene have a predisposition to developing breast and ovarian cancer. OK, that wasn’t necessarily a newsflash, but wait… EpiGenie reader, Alexander Dobrovic and his team at the Peter […]
Prions Take Epigenetics to the ExtremeOctober 28, 2010Yeah, we know that somewhere between the X-games and base-jumping light beer ads, the term “Extreme” got a little played out. But, in their Perspective piece in Science, Randal Halfmann and Susan Lindquist make the case that certain proteins with unique folding properties, called prions, deserve the “extreme” label. Prions are proteins that are stably […]
Pardon the Epigenetic DisruptionOctober 28, 2010One of the great things about stem cells is how they seem to do just about anything. These days, stem cells have more Apps than an iPad, and in the new issue of Science we find one more: using stem cells to screen for “epigenetic disruptors”. The proposed idea is to use the built-in developmental […]
That’s Sweet: Tracking Down 5-hmC with SugarOctober 26, 2010To say researchers have been pretty amped about 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) this last year would be an understatement. Is this 6th base for real, or is it some kind of intermediate of it’s more abundant cousin 5-mC? So far its low key presence has been detected in embryonic stem cells, brain, and other organs but there […]
