Running in Circles: circRNAs Act as Shuttles for miRNA CargoAugust 15, 2017Feeling out of the loop about all the different non-coding RNAs being described? Well hold on, because circular RNAs (circRNA) are about to throw you for a loop. Mammalian circRNAs are created by covalent closure of transcribed exons into loops. These circRNAs are highly expressed in specific brain regions, and conserved between mice and humans. They […]
dCas9 Epigenome Editing Toolbox Smashes Histone Methylation DogmaAugust 14, 2017Tools are great for building, but sometimes it’s more fun using them to break things down. While we’ve applied deactivated Cas9 (dCas9) tools to build our knowledge of DNA methylation, this time it takes an entire toolbox to break the connection between histone methylation and gene repression. This constructive deconstruction comes at you from the […]
The Great Unknown of Chromatin Conformation DynamicsAugust 7, 2017Apart from the ever rising and falling measurements of one’s waistline and bank balance, the three-dimensional (3D) chromatin conformation of the mammalian genome is one of the most dynamic and least understood factors in a scientist’s life. Luckily, the development of new high-definition techniques and enhanced computational analyses are helping us to understand how the […]
Genomic Imprinting’s Alternative Choices: H3K27me3 and 5hmCJuly 31, 2017In today’s world, where choices are a plenty, alternative is a fashionable choice. When it comes to genomic imprinting, traditionalists swear by DNA cytosine methylation (5mC); however, sometimes imprinting turns to alternative epigenetic marks. Genomic imprinting is typically driven by 5mC at imprinting control regions (ICRs), where it represses the expression of the marked allele […]
Genome Protection in the Embryo: A Big Role for Small RNAs!July 27, 2017It’s not how big it is, it’s what you do with it that counts. Here at Epigenie, we don’t think that size matters, as evidenced by our excitement over studies showing that small RNAs in sperm can mediate huge intergenerational effects related to paternal exercise and diet! Now, a fascinating study from the lab of […]