An Inflammatory Microclimate Seeds a Super-enhancer That Drives TumorigenesisNovember 7, 2022While microclimates shape environments along coastlines and urban jungles, this phenomenon isn’t restricted to macroscopic landscapes; now, a new study provides evidence that inflammatory signaling from the tumor microenvironment (TME) alters the epigenetic landscape by inducing the formation of a super-enhancer (SE) that drives tumorigenesis. An environmentally-friendly team led by Ramon E. Parsons (Icahn School […]
No Cells? No Problem! How Cell-Free DNA Methylation Profiles May Guide Cancer ManagementAugust 20, 2022When set the monumental task of studying how the epigenetic mechanisms underlying tumorigenesis, isolating a cell sample usually represents your first analytical port of call; however, research now suggests that liquid biopsies of a patient’s blood may provide a wealth of information from cell-free DNA. Furthermore, widening this approach to DNA methylation analysis may also […]
Multimodal Nanopore Profiling of Circulating Tumor DNAAugust 1, 2022The Oxford Nanopore (ONT) sequencing platform may have more modalities than a Swiss army knife. In a multimodal masterpiece of a new study, researchers now demonstrate how DNA methylation, copy number alterations, nucleosome footprinting, and fragmentation profiles derived from liquid biopsies of cancer patients can deconvolute cellular composition and identify cancer-specific methylation changes from circulating […]
Dr. Steve Chan: The Epigenetic Regulation of Breast CancerJune 9, 2022Using unbiased ChIP-Rx analyses to discover a novel role for CTR9 in the epigenetic regulation of PRC2 subtype switching in breast cancer Our colleagues at Proteintech hosted a webinar from Dr. Steve Chan from The University of Wisconsin-Madison, who reviewed their recent paper “The transcriptional elongation factor CTR9 demarcates PRC2-mediated H3K27me3 domains by altering PRC2 […]
EPIC Technique Infers Gene Expression from Cell-free DNA FragmentationMay 9, 2022It’s time to put down that well-thumbed copy of Homer’s Odyssey, as there is a new epic in town. Now, the “epigenetic expression inference from cell-free (cf)DNA-sequencing” (EPIC-seq) technique heroically enables gene expression analysis using a process known as “fragmentomics.” Circulating cfDNA comes as nucleosome-associated fragments that reflect the chromatin configuration in the cell of […]
Automated Chromatin Profiling Platforms Autopilot Patients to the ClinicNovember 22, 2021From human-free supermarket check-outs to autopiloted cars, the modern world is rapidly moving towards automation. In the most recent advance, a rabble of robotic researchers has applied related technological tricks to epigenetic assays to “autopilot” high-throughput chromatin profiling and provide a clinical tool that may support optimized treatment choices in leukemia patients. Specifically, a technology-driven […]
New Single-cell CRISPR Screens “ATAC” Chromatin AccessibilityJune 6, 2021Have you been struggling to agree on a plan of action for your recent epigenetic experiments? Have you been fighting over just what strategy to use to decipher how genetic alterations affect the epigenetic landscape? While we should all follow John and Yoko’s example and try to give peace a chance, you sometimes need to […]
Where’s the Cancer Driver? MethSig Cuts Through the Background Noise to Identify Oncogenic Promoter HypermethylationMay 26, 2021As any TikTokker, Zoom presenter, or amateur photographer worth their salt can tell you, sometimes a good background is all you need to make your content really pop. It turns out that the same principle applies when trying to figure out which promoter DNA hypermethylation events drive tumor growth. MethSig, a new algorithm developed by Heng Pan in Dan Landau’s group at Weill Cornell Medicine, improves […]
Nu.Q Capture‑MS: The New New of Liquid Biopsy Detects Histone Modifications on Circulating NucleosomesApril 20, 2021With the rapid pace of liquid biopsy assay development, it can be a challenge to keep up with the latest and greatest early cancer detection methods. Although most methods are focused on assaying the association of cell-free DNA methylation profiles with cancer, a new method homes in on circulating nucleosomes and their histone post-translational modifications (PTMs). In order […]
Removing R-loops Regulates Repression: Revealing the Role of LSD1April 19, 2021Epigenetic regulatory cascades can be complex affairs…to say the least. Thankfully, a recent chromatin effector coregulator-based study now keeps us firmly in the loop by revealing how a histone demethylase induces gene repression by triggering a regulatory cascade that removes RNA:DNA hybrid structures known as R-loops! A talented team led by Philipp Rathert (University of […]
