Non-Watson-Crick Base Pairing in the miRNA Seed RegionAugust 12, 2014First epigenetics knocked Mendel off the high horse of simple inheritance and now it’s taking a shot at Watson and Crick. It seems that not even base-pairing is safe these days, with microRNA targeting demonstrating that it is anything but simple. In its latest political statement this member of the non-coding party has been caught […]
CRISPR/Cas9 Get Upgraded sgRNA TargetingAugust 12, 2014The Crispr/Cas9 genome editing system has risen to fame so quickly it appears to be suffering from a case of the bends. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University however have just given it a bit more room by to breathe by overcoming an inherent bias that limits sequences the system can target. By modifying the short guide […]
Patient Specific iPSCs Team Up with CRISPR/Cas9August 12, 2014Some villains are so tough that it might take a few heroes to take them on. β-thalassemia is just that evil, an all too common genetic disease at the worldwide level. Caused by simple mutations in the hemoglobin beta (HBB) gene, this beast is Mendelian in nature. Which makes a perfect target for CRISPR/Cas9, a duo with […]
The Embryonic Journey of DNA Methylation DynamicsAugust 5, 2014Two recent Nature papers made big strides in understanding mammalian embryonic DNA methylation. The Meissner and Eggan team from Harvard focused in on CpG dynamics and how they compare to mice, specifically in terms of parental contribution. While the Qian and Tang team from Bejing examined how DNAm effects the epigenetic embryonic landscape in terms of histone […]
Gazing at Your Local Epiproteome with CRISPR-ChAP-MSAugust 4, 2014For those of you who were thinking the CRISPR/Cas9 system was just limited to genome editing, think again because the story just got a new twist. Almost like combining the bullet speed of Superman with the hi-tech gadgets of Batman, Alan Tackett and colleagues come up with a new tool to look at all the […]