Total Histone Content Contributes to Embryonic Stem Cell PluripotencySeptember 5, 2014Histones, the powerful regulators of the nucleus that can make our genetic material expand and contract faster than interest rates on the economy, are deeply involved in stem cell differentiation dynamics. But what about the total amount of histones in a cell? Until recently researchers have viewed histone content as fairly fixed, but an Italian […]
450K Hacked: ox-BS Gives Away 5hmC’s secretsSeptember 5, 2014Differentiating between DNA’s celebrity cytosine bases can be harder than remembering all the ‘celebrities’ caught in hollywood’s latest photo leak. But have no fear, because oxidative bisulfite conversion (ox-BS) is here to save the day in a reduced representation way. Normally, bisulfite conversion doesn’t produce a difference in readout between 5mC and 5hmC, but ox-BS overcomes this by treating the DNA […]
Get In Tune with Chromatin: Abcam High Sensitivity ChIP KitsSeptember 3, 2014Today’s epigenetics researchers need to squeeze every last bit of detail from the chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) experiments they run. That’s why Abcam launched their new High Sensitivity ChIP kits; to help bench scientists stay tuned in to what’s going on with the chromatin in their samples. Abcam High Sensitivity ChIP Kits sport some pretty nifty […]
EpiGenie Book Reviews: Epigenetics in PsychiatrySeptember 3, 2014Weighing in at just above 600 pages, Epigenetics in Psychiatry sets out to cover emerging research interests in the world of neuroepigenomics and it’s translation to the clinic. A collection of reviews, rather than a more standard textbook, it is written by researchers in the field with a focus on the background of their research […]
Chromatin Never Forgets to Stay in the LoopSeptember 3, 2014While DNA has long been thought of as the molecular sheriff of inheritance, the epigenome continues to unravel it’s mystery in a western film style, with chromatin as the lasso wielding cowboy that never lets past transgressions slide. It seems that the pericentric heterochromatin (PCH) gang has gone and looted chromatin of it’s transcriptional treasures by some organized crime. […]