YY1 Drives Enhancers and Promoters Loopy!January 15, 2018Cell culture hood in disarray? Favorite coffee cup missing? Internet running slow? What exactly drives you loopy in the laboratory?! Recently, the lab of Richard A. Young (Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, USA) has been driven round the bend in their quest to understand what controls the DNA looping process that brings together enhancers […]
TET Proteins: Defending Differentiation by denying de novo Methylation!December 13, 2017I don´t overeat! I’m not lazy! I’m not eating the agar plates when I´m working in the lab late, honest! Psychologists consider denial as one of our most primitive defense mechanisms and recent studies of epigenetic defense mechanisms in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) by the labs of Olivier Elemento (Weill Cornell Medical College) and Danwei […]
Hit-and-Run Epigenetic Editing Helps Breast Cells Evade Cycle ArrestDecember 11, 2017While a hit-and-run typically leads to an arrest, in the world of epigenetic editing it turns out to be the key to evading cell cycle arrest (senescence) and promoting the transformation of a law-abiding cell into a cancerous criminal! The hypermethylation of promoters at the wrong time and wrong place is a trademark of cancer, […]
eBook: Key Chromatin Players | H3K27December 6, 2017Histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27) is one of the most studied histone modifications with a complex biological role. Trimethyaltion of K27 is a hallmark of repressed transcription, while acetylation is associated with active transcription. Recent work has supported these roles as well as provided evidence for novel functions. This ebook covers the basics of H3K27 modifications, their role […]
One-Carbon, One Long Life: Methyl Donors Linked to LongevityNovember 22, 2017While manipulating DNA methylation has taken up most of our lifespans, the manipulation of methyl donors critical to this process may just be the key to making up for the lost time. During one-carbon metabolism, the essential amino acid methionine is metabolized into S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), a methyl donor responsible for DNA and histone methylation. Donation of […]
