Caffeine Fix Showdown: The Impact of Coffee and Tea on DNA Methylation and Disease RiskMay 27, 2021While a mug of dark roasted coffee can jump-start your day and a cup of fragrant tea may soothe frayed nerves after a grueling session in the lab, a highly-caffeinated new study now shows that these hot beverages also impact human health by influencing DNA methylation. Previous caffeine-fueled studies have provided contrasting views on how […]
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 […]
CRISPRon, CRISPRoff… Two New Tools to Earn You the Black Belt in Hit-and-Run Epigenetic EditingMay 17, 2021Power, accuracy, and stability are the three tenets of hit-and-run epigenetic editing that every aspiring black belt must learn to master. To aid our quest, masters from the dojos of Luke Gilbert (University of California, San Francisco) and Jonathan Weissman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have come forth with not only new mantra but also a new set […]
Fortune Telling with EPICOVID – A Novel DNA Methylation Signature that Predicts COVID-19 SeverityMay 9, 2021DNA methylation signatures can function somewhat like a fortune teller’s crystal ball – foretelling those patients with poor prognosis and helping to choose the optimal treatment strategy. By gazing into the crystal ball of the COVID-19 methylome, a fortune-telling team led by Manel Esteller (Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain) and Aurora Pujol (Bellvitge […]
DNA Methylation Signature Defines a Second Neurodevelopmental Disorder Associated with SRCAPApril 27, 2021Sometimes the only way to tell who’s who is with their signatures. It turns out that epigenetic signatures can tell one disorder from another, and even help find new ones. Chromatin remodelers play important roles in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Pathogenic genetic variants in many of these genes cause specific NDDs. These are often associated with […]
Meet the Escape Artists of X-Chromosome InactivationApril 22, 2021While an escape from the zoo sounds newsworthy on its own, the addition of X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) makes it irresistible for our news crew. An exciting new epigenetic effort has captured the exceptional XCI escape artists across eutherian mammals. XCI is a dosage compensation mechanism in females that results in the inactivation of one of […]
Methylation’s Moonlighting Mysteries: DNMT3L’s Divergent Roles in Down SyndromeApril 12, 2021By daylight, DNA methyltransferase 3L (DNMT3L) takes on the modest role of a catalytically inactive but stimulatory binding partner for its more popular methyltransferase siblings (DNMT3A and DNMT3B). But, when the sun goes down, DNMT3L gives new meaning to protein moonlighting. DNMT3L is located on chromosome 21, which has made it a prime candidate for the Down syndrome […]
A “Batty” New Epigenetic Clock Provides Clues About Healthy AgingApril 8, 2021Are you cuckoo for clocks, dotty for DNA methylation, and avid about aging? Well, a “batty” new study of epigenetic aging in certain long-lived winged mammals has just added to the zoo of clues about epigenetic age by providing a bat epigenetic clock. Specifically, an ardent team of researchers led by the levels heads of […]
From Single Molecules to Single Cells: NanoMethPhase and scMspJI-seq Upgrade DNA Methylation Mining MethodsApril 2, 2021Mining the DNA methylome can provide a treasure trove of biological insight, and two new whole-genome DNA methylation sequencing methods have come along to fuel a technological gold rush. NanoMethPhase and scMspJI-seq break new ground in phasing allele-specific methylation (ASM) and generating strand-specific single-cell methylomes. By applying these novel approaches, the talented teams dig deep into complex DNA […]
Stat3 is a Mitochondrial Mastermind Behind Metabolic Control of DNA Methylation in Naïve Stem CellsFebruary 15, 2021We’ve seen that mitochondria can modify nuclear DNA methylation, but until recently, the identities of the masterminds behind how the powerhouse of the cell can affect epigenetic change in the nucleus have remained classified. Although Stat3 is most notably recruited by LIF to activate the pluripotency gene network in the nucleus, we also know that LIF […]