tRNA Fragments Beat DNA Methylation in the Game of Paternal Intergenerational Epigenetic InheritanceJanuary 9, 2016The fact that parental diet affects the metabolism of offspring goes to show that inheritance can be shaped by environmental factors. While early studies focused on mom’s contribution, we’re now starting to see the importance of paternal contribution for shaping an offspring’s epigenome. For the past 15 years, the lab of Oliver Rando at the […]
Stress Accelerates Epigenetic AgeingDecember 18, 2015The epigenetic clock has developed faster than the iWatch: it can predict biological age from select CpGs, which when compared with chronological age, gives a metric known as Δ-age. The greater the difference, the greater the acceleration of epigenetic age, which indicates variation in the rate of senescence between people. To understand this variation and […]
A TAD Closer to Understanding 3D Chromatin StructureDecember 15, 2015Interview with Dr. Jennifer Phillips-Cremins at Keystone Symposia’s Precision Genome Engineering and Synthetic Biology. My lab is really focused on understanding the epigenetic mechanisms that regulate early brain development. And the, sort of traditional way of studying epigenetic marks, is to zoom in and really focus on a particular modification at a precise location in […]
m6A Modification Protects Against Heat ShockNovember 13, 2015When exposed to high temperatures, cells behave much as we would on a hot summer’s day. Cell division, and most energy-consuming activities, come to a standstill (a bit like the human equivalent of lying perfectly still on a sunbed with a mojito in hand). Yet, despite the general repression of translation, genes encoding protective heat […]
Linking RNA Modifications and Stem Cell PluripotencyNovember 12, 2015Recent studies reported here at Epigenie have identified N6-methyladenosine (m6A) as a highly dynamic RNA modification that influences all aspects of RNA biology. Furthermore, an interesting study in mouse and human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) has indicated a role for N6-methyladenosine in the switch between ESC pluripotency and differentiation. Cool stuff indeed, but whate regulates N6-methyladenosine deposition […]
