EZH2: Cancer Villain or MDS Hero?July 7, 2010EZH2 takes a lot of abuse, and is often labeled as a dreaded oncogene , but like a movie villain who redeems themselves in the end, the histone methyltransferase isn’t all evil. According to two new papers published simultaneously in Nature Genetics, EZH2 may in fact function as a tumor suppressor in some blood cancers. […]
Butyrate Boosts iPS Derivation via Epigenetic RemodelingJune 24, 2010Sometimes we all need a little boost to improve productivity, whether it’s a mid-afternoon Snickers bar or a venti quadruple-shot latte to jump start a weary mind. It turns out that human fibroblasts also like a little something extra to help them reprogram into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). Researchers at Johns Hopkins University led […]
Worming Your Way to Longer Life Through Histone DemethylationJune 22, 2010Life’s tough when you’re a C. elegans worm. You hatch, you molt, you reproduce (usually with yourself), and then you die, all within 2–3 weeks. But a talented team of researchers at Stanford has found a way to keep worms wriggling long after they normally go to the great compost heap in the sky. Stanford’s […]
Nucleosome Dynamics: CATCH-IT if You CanJune 9, 2010Since our interview last year with Steve Henikoff, in which we discussed his Roadmap Epigenomics R21 grant, we’ve been itching to learn all the details of his new method for studying nucleosome turnover. On May 28, our wait was finally over with the debut of the CATCH-IT (covalent attachment of tags to capture histones and […]
Unscrambling Nucleosome-DNA Methylation RelationsJune 7, 2010Like the age-old “chicken-or-the-egg” question, epigeneticists have wondered which comes first, nucleosome positioning or DNA methylation. One school of thought is that DNA must be unwrapped from nucleosomes to allow methyltransferase access before methylation can occur, but a new study in Nature suggests that this theory isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. A […]
DNA Methylation Takes a Back Seat To Histone Mods in miRNA RegulationMay 11, 2010DNA methylation has long been considered a key epigenetic driver in transcription, but lately histone modifications have been stealing some of the regulatory thunder. Histone mods like H3K4me3, H3K27me3 and H4 acetylation have shown researchers they’re not afraid to get conrolling when it comes to miRNA transcription either. Researchers from the Institute of Genetics and […]
Forgetting Things? Better Acetylate Your H4K12May 6, 2010Ever feel like you’re forgetting things more often as you get older? Little things like where you put your keys or why you walked into the cold room (not that we would know what that’s like – as far as you know!) can turn into huge mysteries. Researchers now think they’ve pin-pointed why this happens, […]
CpG Islands Tackle Chromatin Remodeling ProjectApril 28, 2010Researchers have known about CpG Islands (CGIs) for decades, but there are still more questions than answers when it comes to this heavily studied genomic real-estate. Hypermethylated CGIs seem to get a lot of attention for their apparent involvement in transcriptional silencing, but most CGIs stay unmethylated. So what’s going on in these unmethylated CGIs? […]
ChIP-Sequencing Tips for Small SamplesApril 28, 2010ChIP sequencing (ChIP-Seq) has revolutionized the way researchers can study protein-DNA interactions, enabling genome wide protein binding profiling in one experiment, rather than looking one locus at a time. Not satisfied with pushing just one envelope, today’s researchers are now moving towards samples that are very limited. Fortunately, ChIP methods have aged finer than a […]
Transcription Enhancers Have an Oprah MomentMarch 30, 2010Not to get all “Oprah”, but sometimes, you need to let go of unstable elements in order to enhance your life. Researchers now report that this drama unfolds at the DNA level too. Here’s what they found: an unstable nucleosome sitting smack dab in the center of an enhancer can get kicked off to make […]
