The Secret Life of 5-AzacytidineMarch 29, 20105-azacytidine has been in the public eye for quite a while now, and it’s been widely known as a powerful demethylating agent in clinical trials for cancer. So you can imagine our surprise when a new publication in Epigenetics caught 5-azacytidine also living a secret life of reorganizing histone modifications…lots of them. Researchers from UC […]
EpiGenie Gets a Face LiftMarch 18, 2010Since we launched EpiGenie two years ago, we’ve been redesigning it and putting various bandages on it to share information a little better. Well, three web developers and a bunch of late nights later, we’re psyched to present our new look and feel. What’s New? We made a number of changes to design and our […]
Thank Histone Methylation for the MemoriesMarch 17, 2010Ever notice how certain things can trigger unpleasant memories (like that sushi that gave you food poisoning)? Researchers have long wondered how these “contextual fear memories” get burned into our brains. A new study led by Farah Lubin at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has shown that histone methylation plays an important role in […]
The Aging Methylome and CancerMarch 15, 2010Between the body aches and wrinkles, most of us don’t need to be reminded that getting old is the most significant health risk. A new report in Genome Research explains how promoters of certain Polycomb group protein target genes (PCGTs) become increasingly hypermethylated as we age; leaving us more at risk for cancer. The link […]
For miRNA Genes, Thin Is In(tron)March 3, 2010An alarming new trend is sweeping the nation: men in skinny jeans. The fad has gone so far that even miRNAs have started squeezing themselves into tight genes, so to speak. According to a new paper by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Harvard, it seems miRNA genes preferentially wedge themselves within the introns of […]
SCAN-ing For Chromatin GoldMarch 2, 2010If you run enough tedious ChIP experiments, it feels like you might as well be panning for gold back in the 1800s; doing a lot of work for a few nuggets of data. Luckily some technological wizards at Cornell University have your back and are working on a new system called SCAN (Single Chromatin Analysis […]
Epigenetic Marks Make the Long Distance Thing Look EasyFebruary 22, 2010Even with all the advanced communications at our fingertips today, long distance relationships rarely work out, but it appears epigenetic silencing is an exception. Epigenetic silencing can spread to neighboring genomic regions through long-range epigenetic silencing (LRES) in cancer cells. In LRES, large blocks of genomic regions (like on the order of megabases) get silenced. […]
Transcription Factors Stand Up to the Methylation MachineFebruary 18, 2010Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. That appears to be the case for transcription factors (TFs) that resist de novo DNA methylation by binding to their sites in CpG islands. Although this idea has been around for awhile, a team of German and American researchers led by Michael Rehli recently provided the first […]
CpG Methyltransferases Caught in the Act-and in Real TimeFebruary 17, 2010Being “caught in the act” isn’t usually a good thing, but catching DNA methyltransferases in the act is a very good thing for epigeneticists. A team at the University of Southampton (U.K.) now reports that they have developed a reproducible, real-time fluorescent assay that will help scientists understand how these enzymes regulate themselves, interact with […]
CSI’s Newest Crime-Solving Tool: miRNAsFebruary 17, 2010The TV franchise CSI: Crime Scene Investigation makes it seem like analyzing biological samples in a criminal investigation is as simple as pushing a button on a fancy gizmo and having the results printed out within seconds. (Of course, they also solve complex mysteries in under an hour every week, so I guess you can’t […]