Bees Model Their Potential for Epigenomic ResearchApril 13, 2015With spring in the air, the honeybees are already out and buzzing about and now an international team from Australia and Poland have created a different type of buzz with their research into 5hmC and its effect of bee’s behaviour. The importance of epigenetics in bees has already been suggested with the finding that honeybees use miRNAs to enable their […]
CRISPR Gets Creative with Histone AcetylationApril 9, 2015There’s been a lot of firsts in the world of genome editing happening lately, from its application in human embryonic stem cells,  the identification of a smaller more versatile Cas9, to its upgrade to efficiently using homology-directed repair. Now CRISPR-Cas9 is getting its feet wet with epigenome editing thanks to the clever folks in the Gersbach lab […]
DNMT1 Loss is Lethal in Human But Not Mouse Embryonic Stem CellsApril 2, 2015Mouse models have been great to science, they’ve given insight into humans in ways simply not possible in humans. However, while there are striking similarities in the epigenetics of mice and men, there are also undoubtedly some fundamental differences. Now, a team from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard consisting of the labs of Alexander Meissner, J. Keith Joung, and John […]
Sex On the Brain: DNA Methylation Defines GenderMarch 31, 2015AÂ talented team from the University of Maryland has added some strong molecular evidence that DNA methylation is an active player in setting the sexual behaviors you’re born with. Sexuality has always been a complex topic. Typically it refers to presence or absence of certain sex organs. However, the concept of gender is more complex, as […]
H3K9me3: The Genomic Pacifier That Silences SINEsMarch 30, 2015Kids can be hard to handle, between dealing with drawing on the walls and public temper tantrums; therefore all parents need a successful tactic for keeping them under control. Short INterspersed Elements (SINEs) are like the chaotic kids of the genome. These repetitive sequences make up about 11% of our genome and because of their […]
