EpiGenie Guide: Chromatin ShearingMarch 6, 2020ChIP-Seq has transformed the field of epigenetics, providing unprecedented resolution and coverage for surveying protein- DNA interactions. Powerful, high-throughput sequencing is credited with most of the benefits, but there’s a lot more that goes into ChIP-Seq than sequencing. Chromatin shearing is one of the first critical steps in the ChIP-Seq workflow. Depending on your approach, […]
dCas9-ROS1 Cuts Out the Methylation Middlemen in Targeted DNA DemethylationMarch 3, 2020As the saying goes, the shortest path from A to B is a straight line and if you’re studying DNA demethylation, you know just how complicated things can get along the road from methylated to unmethylated cytosines. Mammals use Ten-Eleven Translocation proteins (TET) to oxidize 5mC, but the process creates pit stops that may be […]
Epigenetic Study Suggests that the Safety of Vaping is Running on FumesMarch 2, 2020With as many flavors as there are epigenetic modifications, vaping has arrived on the scene as a safer alternative to the smoking of cigarettes and a means to give up a rather unhealthy habit. However, the rise in vaping-related lung injuries and the “unforeseen” massive uptake of vaping by teenagers have prompted scientists to undertake […]
Inactive X Chromosomes SPENd Time Tucked Under the Epigenetic CoversFebruary 25, 2020When it’s the dead of winter, and the world outside is frozen solid, there’s no better place to be than under a mountain of warm blankets, like an inactivated X chromosome under a cloud of Xist long-noncoding RNA. Although we’ve known for a while that Xist is necessary for X chromosome inactivation (XCI), the mechanisms […]
SAXS Imaging Gets to the (Brave)heart of the Matter: First Full-Length Structure of a Long Non-Coding RNAFebruary 18, 2020It’s Valentine’s season, which means love is in the air, and heart-shaped novelties are abundant. But new research from the labs of Trushar Patel (University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada) and Karissa Sanbonmatsu (Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA) has flipped the script: they are giving us the shape of Braveheart, a long non-coding RNA […]