Engineering (Epi)Genomes with CRISPR-CasMarch 14, 2013To really figure out what genes really do, you gotta get in there and get your hands dirty. That usually means deleting or modifying genes, or other regulatory regions. In a recent “Research Highlight” article, researchers at Johns Hopkins reviewed the three main ways to do this, including the increasingly popular CRISPR/Cas system. To engineer […]
EpiGenie Book Reviews: EpigeneticsMarch 11, 2013If you’ve spent any time browsing the EpiGenie site, then you already know that we find epigenetics pretty interesting. So, of course any book with the title of Epigenetics is going to grab our attention. Epigenetics edited by Jörg Tost, gathers information from several top scientists working in various facets of epigenetics to assemble a […]
Guide: Getting Started with ChIP-SeqFebruary 27, 2013Chromatin-immunoprecipitation (ChIP) followed by sequencing of the immuno-precipitated DNA is a powerful tool for the investigation of Protein:DNA interactions. To perform ChIP-seq, chromatin is isolated from cells or tissues and fragmented. Antibodies against chromatin associated proteins are used to enrich for specific chromatin fragments. The DNA is recovered, sequenced and aligned to a reference genome […]
EpiGenie Guide: ChIP Antibody ValidationFebruary 11, 2013If you can find a ChIP Grade or ChIP Validated antibody, then you’ve got a head start. But there’s no reason to stress if you can’t. Leave that for the data analysis part of your experiments (only kidding). A quick check of the spec sheet of any antibody can reveal lots of useful info. Here […]
Visualize Histone Modifications in Single Cells? Yes You Can.January 18, 2013ChIP has been a dear friend to researchers studying histone modifications for years. But, just like most friends, it has its imperfections too, particularly when it comes to sensitivity. On its best day ChIP is about as sensitive as Mr. Trump and just like The Donald, it can be temperamental. So we were excited to […]
Making Sense of the Grade: ChIP Validation TerminologyJanuary 17, 2013Antibody vendors have been hard at work to offer antibodies that are suitable for applications like ChIP. Usually these antibodies have been used successfully in peer-reviewed publications. In many cases they’ve been validated internally by an R&D team, and in some cases, each lot may be validated to work in ChIP applications. The tricky part […]
DANPOS Reveals Dynamic NucleosomesJanuary 2, 2013Keeping track of where some nucleosomes are on chromatin can be just as tricky as keeping track of Taylor Swift’s love life. They’re on, they’re off, they’re at a new place. Well, here comes a new bioinformatics solution to help you keep score on the nucleosome front, anyway. It’s called DANPOS, and it provides single-nucleotide […]
Watch Chromatin “Breathe” in Embryonic Stem CellsDecember 31, 2012This holiday season, we breathed in lots of good smells—the scent of pine trees, the aroma of pumpkin pie, and the unmistakable smoky smell of a roaring fire. Now, researchers say they’ve caught chromatin in the act of “breathing” in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) before they differentiate. The team from California and Italy developed […]
Top Epigenetics & ncRNA Conference Picks for Winter 2013December 27, 2012We’re on the verge of 2013. For those of you who want to up your epigenetics research game and have some fun in the process, we’ve got conferences you should definitely check out. The year starts off a little quiet on the numbers front, but the quality more than makes up for it. January […]
EMdeCODE Deciphers Epigenetic Code, Finds New Role for Old Histone ModificationsDecember 19, 2012With all the “LOL”s, “IMHO”s, and “YOLO”s out there, it’s like we’re all speaking in code. When we get stumped on what these things mean, we can always turn to Google. But what if you want to decipher the hypothetical “epigenetic code?” Well, one researcher has the answer—EMdeCODE, a new algorithm that does just that […]
