Manipulating DNA Methylation with dCas9-DNMT3AMarch 19, 2016Almost immediately after its inception as a biotechnological tool, CRIPSR/Cas9 showed that it was more than just a genome editor. Deactivated Cas9 (dCas9) is a precision RNA-guided DNA-binding domain with a growing range of effector domains that can be swapped out like LEGO. When it comes to epigenome editing with dCas9, histones have led the […]
Magnetogenetics Goes Deep Into the BrainMarch 19, 2016The ability to control things with magnetic fields is no longer restricted to the mischief of comic book villains. Using synthetic biology to figure out just what neurons do has always been a tricky task, because it has been limited by requiring invasive surgery (optogenetics) or slow on-off kinetics (drugs). But now magnetogenetics emerges as […]
Peeping in on Dynamic All-or-None Single-Cell Chromatin RepressionMarch 6, 2016Ever dream of knowing the single-cell details of chromatin regulators in real-time only to awake trapped in the static world of heterogenous cell populations? Well, dream no longer because thanks to the efforts of the Elowitz laboratory at Caltech researchers now have the ability to see just how some of our favorite epigenetic repressors (HDAC4, KRAB, DNMT3B […]
Elevate Your Epigenetics Game with DeepBlue and epiGbsMarch 2, 2016When it comes time to tackle the big data of the epigenome, tools and databases are your best friend. However, in today’s modern world, there’s more than one way to crack the epigenome and now two new tools serve up some interesting perspectives on the use of reference sequence. Going Deep into Databases Felipe Albrecht […]
LEXY: Optogenetic Nuclear Export for Proteins Looking to Go PlacesMarch 2, 2016Optogenetics is one of the flashier techniques of the past decade. Instead of slow chemical or blunt physical interventions, optogenetics controls events inside cells with the timing and precision of a beam of light. Optogenetic success stories thus far include light-activated neuron firing, heart beating, organelle positioning, protein dimerization, membrane localization, gene editing, and import […]
