EpiGenie Environmental Epigenetics ReviewJuly 6, 2011Thanks to growing interest from the general public, environmental epigenetics is a red-hot topic with no signs of cooling off anytime soon. We’ve certainly covered our fair share of research with an environmental slant to it, so if you want to review, research, or just plain get up to speed on the subject, these articles […]
Hitting the (Hair Dye) Bottle May Alter DNA MethylomeJuly 6, 2011If you change your hair color more frequently than Lady Gaga, you may be affecting your DNA methylation patterns, according to a new study in the journal Epigenetics. To gain a better understanding of the “normal” human methylome, researchers used BeadChip arrays to analyze the methylation of 26,486 CpG loci in the blood of 205 […]
Folic Acid During Pregnancy: Friend or Foe?June 30, 2011Most of us have a hard time keeping up with the latest health recommendations . . . what’s good one year turns out to be a bad idea the next (kinda like the final season of Lost). For years, doctors have been telling women to take folic acid supplements before and during pregnancy to prevent […]
In Search of 5-hmC’s Tissue WhereaboutsJune 16, 20115-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) has been hiding out in the genomic shadows too long, but now researchers armed with a new technique, can track 5-hmC not just to the specific tissue it’s holed up in, but also the developmental stage as well. Or as Martha and the Vandellas put it, there’s “nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere […]
Foursome of DNA Methylation Subgroups Found in Colorectal CancerJune 16, 2011As if one kind of colorectal cancer (CRC) isn’t bad enough, new research has uncovered four DNA methylation-based versions of the insidious disease. Our So-Cal neighbors, Toshinori Hinoue and Daniel Weisenberger and team over at the USC Epigenome Center cranked out genome-scale DNA methylation profiles for 125 colorectal tumor and 29 normal tissue samples. The […]