RNAi Rescues DNA Methylation DefectsMarch 25, 2009Nowadays it seems like “interference” carries such negative connotations. RNAs aren’t really big meddlers. In fact, it’s RNAi that’s protecting genomes against the transgenerational loss of DNA methylation. A team of researchers in France and Spain has demonstrated that in Arabidopsis, the RNA interference (RNAi) machinery can remethylate target sequences that were hypomethylated by mutation […]
The PSA Debate and DNA Methylation BiomarkersMarch 25, 2009For many men, nothing can kick off a mid-life crisis quicker than a prostate exam. Middle-aged guys in sports cars everywhere dread reminders from their urologist for prostate checkups. Don’t even get us started on PSA’s infamous counterpart, the digital rectal exam. The prostate surface antigen (PSA) test was launched back in 1985 by Hybritech, […]
miR-101: RNA Guardian Of The Genome?March 9, 2009MicroRNA-101 (miR-101) is rapidly earning a place in the “Who’s Who” of tumor suppressor genes. In November, we told you how The Little RNA that Could wallops prostate cancer by repressing the histone methyltransferase EZH2. Now researchers at the University of Southern California have shown that miR-101 plays a similar role in the suppression of […]
Two Epigenetic Drugs Join Forces with Cisplatin to Knock Out CancerMarch 9, 2009Just when it seems that scientists are winning the fight against cancer, tumors hit below the belt by developing resistance to chemotherapies. But researchers at the University of Glasgow and TopoTarget Prolifix Ltd. have shown that delivering a 1-2 punch of epigenetic drugs could allow the chemotherapeutic agent cisplatin to knock out resistant tumors. Cisplatin, […]
ESC Pluripotency Players Take To RESTMarch 2, 2009The lab gloves came off in a recent Nature exchange on the putative role of the transcriptional repressor, REST, in embryonic stem cell pluripotency. In the left corner, Singh and colleagues, conducting experiments out of MD Anderson in the Lone Star State, published data in Nature back in May, 2008 indicating that REST may control […]
