New Single-cell CRISPR Screens “ATAC” Chromatin AccessibilityJune 6, 2021Have you been struggling to agree on a plan of action for your recent epigenetic experiments? Have you been fighting over just what strategy to use to decipher how genetic alterations affect the epigenetic landscape? While we should all follow John and Yoko’s example and try to give peace a chance, you sometimes need to […]
Caffeine Fix Showdown: The Impact of Coffee and Tea on DNA Methylation and Disease RiskMay 27, 2021While a mug of dark roasted coffee can jump-start your day and a cup of fragrant tea may soothe frayed nerves after a grueling session in the lab, a highly-caffeinated new study now shows that these hot beverages also impact human health by influencing DNA methylation. Previous caffeine-fueled studies have provided contrasting views on how […]
Where’s the Cancer Driver? MethSig Cuts Through the Background Noise to Identify Oncogenic Promoter HypermethylationMay 26, 2021As any TikTokker, Zoom presenter, or amateur photographer worth their salt can tell you, sometimes a good background is all you need to make your content really pop. It turns out that the same principle applies when trying to figure out which promoter DNA hypermethylation events drive tumor growth. MethSig, a new algorithm developed by Heng Pan in Dan Landau’s group at Weill Cornell Medicine, improves […]
CRISPRon, CRISPRoff… Two New Tools to Earn You the Black Belt in Hit-and-Run Epigenetic EditingMay 17, 2021Power, accuracy, and stability are the three tenets of hit-and-run epigenetic editing that every aspiring black belt must learn to master. To aid our quest, masters from the dojos of Luke Gilbert (University of California, San Francisco) and Jonathan Weissman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have come forth with not only new mantra but also a new set […]
Timing is Everything – Even for Maintaining the Global Epigenetic State of Human Cells!May 17, 2021They say that timing is everything – from the perfect golf shot to the most cutting joke – and now, a well-timed study establishes that DNA replication timing is everything when it comes to maintaining the global epigenetic state of human cells! Studies had previously described a link between the temporal order of DNA replication […]