Egg-ceptional Role of Retrotransposon Transcription in Depositing DNA MethylationSeptember 25, 2018What do the mammalian genome and an old storage unit have in common? They’re both full of so-called junk. But unlike your aunt’s box of glass figurines, the junk in the human genome has turned out to have a lot of value. Most the “junk” in the human genome arose from retrotransposons. Long terminal repeat […]
Forget a Moment on the Lips, DNA Methylation Disruptions from a Night Without Sleep Could Mean ‘Forever’ on the HipsSeptember 20, 2018While staring at the alarm clock isn’ta great way to catch a healthy night’s sleep, the lull of our circadian rhythm most certainly is. The circadian clock keeps our cells and their epigenomes in shape by maintaining synchrony with the day, and now new findings from the lab of Christian Benedict at Uppsala University (Sweden) […]
Separating Cellular Best Buddies to Understand Epigenetic Dysregulation in Alzheimer’s DiseaseAugust 6, 2018Much like Laurel and Hardy, Bert and Ernie, and Pinky and the Brain, neurons and glia are firm friends and are seldom encountered in isolation. The more numerous glia support and protect their neural chums, helping them to conduct nerve impulses; however, their close companionship and disparate numbers can lead to analytical problems! Research into […]
Chill Out with Dad: Sperm DNA Methylation Changes in Response to Paternal Cold ExposureJuly 31, 2018When you think of the ideal place to live, most of us yearn for the tropics. But it turns out there may be some extra benefits to living in a cold climate (and not just lower rent!). New research from an international collaboration led by the lab of Dr. Christian Wolfrum at ETH Zurich may […]
Epigenetic Teamwork Makes the Stem Cell Dream Work!July 30, 2018Many years before the beginning of the Common Era, the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle first exclaimed that the “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”. Now, collaborative research led by Wei Li and Margaret A. Goodell (Baylor College of Medicine, Texas, USA) that sought to describe the interplay of epigenetic modifiers […]
Sweet Success! DNA Hydroxymethylation Link Between Diabetes and Cancer Discovered!July 25, 2018Patients with diabetes do not get a sweet deal; the long-term complications associated with high blood sugar levels include cardiovascular disease, stroke, eye damage, kidney disease, and foot ulcers. Additionally, diabetic patients suffer from a higher risk of developing cancer, although quite how prolonged high blood sugar levels drives genetic and/or epigenetic alterations towards tumorigenesis […]
dCas9-Suntag-DNMT3A Outshines the Off-Target Effects of Direct dCas9-DNMT3A FusionsJune 25, 2018While even a technology with a future as bright as epigenome editing can have its cold day in the sun, the Suntag system has just cleared the clouds over a growing pain of epigenetic editing: the global off-target effects of dCas9-DNMT3A direct fusion constructs. To cure our epigenetic editing blues, the lab of Ryan Lister […]
Single-Cell Epigenetics of Human Embryos is No Longer too Cool for scCOOL-seq!June 24, 2018The single cells of the developing human embryo are kinda awesome, but maybe they’ve grown a tad arrogant, perhaps a little “too cool for school”? They always hang around alone or in small cliques of similar cells, while the hippest scientists have only recently developed techniques, such as scNOMe-seq and scNMT-seq, trendy enough to begin […]
Causation or Correlation? – First Evidence that DNA Methylation Alterations Cause AgingJune 17, 2018We all assume that water, good old H2O, has nothing to hide; however, dihydrogen monoxide has more than a few skeletons in its closet. For example, water is the leading cause of drowning while 100 percent of all people exposed to water will eventually die! It is easy to chalk up the second of these […]
Eyesight from the Blind: DNA Methylation Causes Cavefish Eye DegenerationJune 11, 2018While we are no strangers to the role of epigenetics in environmental adaption, the lab of Brant Weinstein at the National Institute of Health (Maryland, USA) has brought forth an example of environmental adaption so extreme that it provides profound insight into eye degeneration and blindness. The talented team chose to examine the Mexican tetra […]
