Expert Insight: 5-hmC Analysis MethodsAugust 5, 2010Last year’s discovery of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) caused some epigenetics researchers to suffer a crisis of confidence, provoking many hours of soul-searching questions such as “are my methylation data really accurate?” and “what if what I thought was gene silencing is really activation?” Although current estimates place 5-hmC levels at only a fraction of the 5-mC […]
FFPE: Friend or Foe to Chromatin Analysis?August 4, 2010It Seems like a no-brainer that chopping up proteins and denaturing DNA would have a dramatic effect on chromatin structure. Since so many cancer diagnoses, developmental studies, and examinations of chromatin structure in general rely on slices of wax-embedded tissue blocks, you’d think someone would take a comprehensive look at the effects of prepping those […]
iPS Cells Can’t Escape Their miRNA PastsAugust 4, 2010Even though the second season of The Jersey Shore takes place in Miami, the cast remain true to their ‘guido’ roots. I guess sometimes you just can’t change who you really are. The same is true for microRNA expression profiles of iPS cells. A recent review (Lakshmipathy et.al. 2010) from Ron Hart’s group at the […]
Uncovering 5hmC’s Link to Stem Cell Self-RenewalAugust 3, 2010The search is on to figure out a role for the recently discovered 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) base. While it’s still up in the air if 5hmC will play a main character or just be cast as an extra , this new study in Nature ties the mysterious modification to a demethylation pathway, regulated by Tet proteins, […]
EpiGenie 2010 Mid-Year Editor’s Favorites: Non-Coding RNAJuly 21, 2010We’re halfway through 2010, so we’ve decided to take a look back at some of the best epigenetics publications we’ve covered so far this year. Here are some of our favorite Non-Coding RNA headlines. miRNA Decoys Psuedogenes finally get some love. Long considered to just be wasted genomic space, it turns out that they do […]