DNA Methylation: Thinking Outside the Promoter to Determine LineageJune 9, 2009Promoters get all the glory when it comes to gene regulation. Sure, they’re important, but save a little love for enhancers—they may help cells decide what to be when they grow up! Historically, most methylation studies have focused on promoters, but instead of giving all the attention to these spotlight hogs, researchers at University Hospital […]
miRNA-Mediated Viral Attenuation Gives Vaccines a BoostJune 7, 2009With all the recent talk of swine flu and pandemics, you might be wondering how the development of new flu vaccines is coming along. In an example of impeccable timing, researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine now report that they’ve attenuated, two strains of the influenza A virus, the culprit behind swine, avian, […]
Curing Transposable Elements May Sicken Nearby Coding GenesJune 4, 2009As in many aspects of life, curing the genome of transposable elements (TEs) may be a trade-off. To stop TEs from bouncing all over the genome, cells often resort to small RNA-mediated methylation. But researchers at UC Irvine have discovered that silencing TEs that settle in close to coding regions can reduce the expression of […]
Measuring Nucleosome Dynamics with CATCH-ITMay 25, 2009When he’s not running his lab up at the Hutch or co-editing epigenetics’ only open source journal, Epigenetics and Chromatin, Dr. Steve Henikoff tinkers a bit (ok…that might be a bit of an understatement). Credited with inventing a range of useful research methods that have streamlined processes from sequencing to computational prediction tools, the Chicago […]
What is Suppressing The Suppressors?: Modified CTCFs linked to silenced tumor suppressorsMay 20, 2009Looking for exotic enzymes to silence tumor suppressor genes? You might be searching in vain. Maybe try looking for heterochromatin instead. Salk Institute postdoc Michael Witcher was baffled by what made p16INK4a not tick in breast cancer cells. He fed the genetic sequence into some prediction software, but it wasn’t much help. So he did […]
