Thank Histone Methylation for the MemoriesMarch 17, 2010Ever notice how certain things can trigger unpleasant memories (like that sushi that gave you food poisoning)? Researchers have long wondered how these “contextual fear memories” get burned into our brains. A new study led by Farah Lubin at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has shown that histone methylation plays an important role in […]
The Aging Methylome and CancerMarch 15, 2010Between the body aches and wrinkles, most of us don’t need to be reminded that getting old is the most significant health risk. A new report in Genome Research explains how promoters of certain Polycomb group protein target genes (PCGTs) become increasingly hypermethylated as we age; leaving us more at risk for cancer. The link […]
For miRNA Genes, Thin Is In(tron)March 3, 2010An alarming new trend is sweeping the nation: men in skinny jeans. The fad has gone so far that even miRNAs have started squeezing themselves into tight genes, so to speak. According to a new paper by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Harvard, it seems miRNA genes preferentially wedge themselves within the introns of […]
SCAN-ing For Chromatin GoldMarch 2, 2010If you run enough tedious ChIP experiments, it feels like you might as well be panning for gold back in the 1800s; doing a lot of work for a few nuggets of data. Luckily some technological wizards at Cornell University have your back and are working on a new system called SCAN (Single Chromatin Analysis […]
Epigenetic Marks Make the Long Distance Thing Look EasyFebruary 22, 2010Even with all the advanced communications at our fingertips today, long distance relationships rarely work out, but it appears epigenetic silencing is an exception. Epigenetic silencing can spread to neighboring genomic regions through long-range epigenetic silencing (LRES) in cancer cells. In LRES, large blocks of genomic regions (like on the order of megabases) get silenced. […]
