lncRNA Regulates Tumor Suppressor Two WaysMarch 4, 2013A little redundancy can be a good thing. A team of researchers led by Dr. Kevin Morris at the Scripps Institute, in La Jolla, recently showed that a little redundancy in the regulation of PTEN, a tumor suppressor gene, can be pretty useful…but also really complicated. PTENpg1, a PTEN pseudogene, regulates PTEN via both sense […]
Correcting Brain Tissue Heterogeneity with DNA MethylationFebruary 28, 2013A few weeks ago, we highlighted some great work that has been very useful in helping correct for heterogeneous cell populations in blood. Now, we’ve just got wind of a clever new bioinformatics tool to correct for heterogeneity in the brain. Researchers have studied DNA methylation in brain tissue to see if there’s an association between that modification and […]
Guide: Getting Started with ChIP-SeqFebruary 27, 2013Chromatin-immunoprecipitation (ChIP) followed by sequencing of the immuno-precipitated DNA is a powerful tool for the investigation of Protein:DNA interactions. To perform ChIP-seq, chromatin is isolated from cells or tissues and fragmented. Antibodies against chromatin associated proteins are used to enrich for specific chromatin fragments. The DNA is recovered, sequenced and aligned to a reference genome […]
The Ups and Downs of miRNA and MeCP2 in Fetal BrainsFebruary 26, 2013What goes up must come down. And in the developing human brain, when miR-483-5p levels go up, it makes MeCP2 levels go down, according to researchers in a recent report. Problems with MeCP2 cause Rett Syndrome and other neurological disorders. MeCP2 levels are low in fetal stages of development, but high after birth in the […]
High Def DNA Methylome Maps Point Out Male and Female Germ Cell DifferencesFebruary 20, 2013What sets males and females apart? Actually, let’s not head there, but how about at the methylome level? Quite a bit it appears. In a recent paper, researchers from Japan report that male and female primordial germ cells (PGCs) have different methylomes during development—at least in mice. While these germ cells divide and move to […]
