epigenetics

Epigenetics and ncRNA Headlines

Get all the latest highlights from the literature and special features covering trending epigenetics, ncRNA, and gene regulation research.

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New Single-cell CRISPR Screens “ATAC” Chromatin Accessibility

June 6, 2021

Have you been struggling to agree on a plan of action for your recent epigenetic experiments? Have you been fighting over just what strategy to use to decipher how genetic alterations affect the epigenetic landscape? While we should all follow John and Yoko’s example and try to give peace a chance, you sometimes need to […]

Where’s the Cancer Driver? MethSig Cuts Through the Background Noise to Identify Oncogenic Promoter Hypermethylation

May 26, 2021

As 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 Editing

May 17, 2021

Power, 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 […]

Timing is Everything – Even for Maintaining the Global Epigenetic State of Human Cells!

May 17, 2021

They say that timing is everything – from the perfect golf shot to the most cutting joke – and now, a well-timed study establishes that DNA replication timing is everything when it comes to maintaining the global epigenetic state of human cells! Studies had previously described a link between the temporal order of DNA replication […]

scCUT&Tag: The Cutting Edge of Single-Cell Histone Modification Profiling

May 11, 2021

While we’re usually fans of shortcuts that make our lives easier, this exciting combination of accessible methods to profile single-cell chromatin modifications has our attention, no matter how you slice it. Chromatin profiling using cleavage under targets and tagmentation (CUT&Tag) allows you to investigate histone post-translational modifications and transcription factor occupancy, particularly when limited by […]

PANDORA-seq Opens a Pandora’s Box of sncRNAs

May 2, 2021

The opening of Pandora’s box is said to have cursed the ancient Greek world with sickness, death, and innumerable other evils. Thankfully, a modern-day technique called “PANDORA-seq” brings forth new hope for removing these ancient afflictions on our epigenomes by identifying previously undetectable small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs). A hopeful handful of researchers led by Qi […]

Meet the Escape Artists of X-Chromosome Inactivation

April 22, 2021

While 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 […]

Nu.Q Capture‑MS: The New New of Liquid Biopsy Detects Histone Modifications on Circulating Nucleosomes

April 20, 2021

With the rapid pace of liquid biopsy assay development, it can be a challenge to keep up with the latest and greatest early cancer detection methods. Although most methods are focused on assaying the association of cell-free DNA methylation profiles with cancer, a new method homes in on circulating nucleosomes and their histone post-translational modifications (PTMs). In order […]

Removing R-loops Regulates Repression: Revealing the Role of LSD1

April 19, 2021

Epigenetic regulatory cascades can be complex affairs…to say the least. Thankfully, a recent chromatin effector coregulator-based study now keeps us firmly in the loop by revealing how a histone demethylase induces gene repression by triggering a regulatory cascade that removes RNA:DNA hybrid structures known as R-loops! A talented team led by Philipp Rathert (University of […]

Methylation’s Moonlighting Mysteries: DNMT3L’s Divergent Roles in Down Syndrome

April 12, 2021

By 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 […]