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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Like a Fine Wine, Histone Variant H2A.Z Represses Memories and Accumulates with Age!

February 6, 2018

While aging works wonders for the taste of our ever-accumulating wine collection, the passage of the years is not as kind to our memories! To fully decipher the processes underlying learning and memory differences in the aging brain, the lab of Iva Zovkic at the University of Toronto Mississauga (Canada) recently expanded on past work […]

Epigenetic and Mitochondrial Clocks Synchronously Accelerate with Bipolar Disorder

January 18, 2018

A wise man once said that time is relative, and while physics was on his mind, it seems that biology should have been as well. For instance, patients with bipolar disorder suffer from accelerated aging. However, examinations of telomere length have given mixed results, and this inspired the lab of Joao Quevedo in the University […]

H3K4 Mono-Methylation Means More at Most Enhancers

January 16, 2018

People can have some pretty strange tastes. From mayonnaise on fries to syrup on spaghetti, there’s no accounting for personal preference. Proteins can have some interesting preferences too, where some regions of the genome look better than others. To get at these preferences, a recent publication from the Laboratory of Bing Ren at UC San […]

Single-Cell DNA Methylomes Reveal the Reprograming Secrets of Early Human Embryos

January 16, 2018

You’ve heard before that timing is everything, and this is doubly true in developmental biology. New research out of Fuchou Tang’s lab (Peking University, Beijing) singles in on the timing of methylation changes during embryonic development, and exposes the delicate epigenetic dance of global demethylation and targeted remethylation. Tang’s lab is no stranger to embryonic […]

YY1 Drives Enhancers and Promoters Loopy!

January 15, 2018

Cell culture hood in disarray? Favorite coffee cup missing? Internet running slow? What exactly drives you loopy in the laboratory?! Recently, the lab of Richard A. Young (Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, USA) has been driven round the bend in their quest to understand what controls the DNA looping process that brings together enhancers […]

TET Proteins: Defending Differentiation by denying de novo Methylation!

December 13, 2017

I don´t overeat! I’m not lazy! I’m not eating the agar plates when I´m working in the lab late, honest! Psychologists consider denial as one of our most primitive defense mechanisms and recent studies of epigenetic defense mechanisms in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) by the labs of Olivier Elemento (Weill Cornell Medical College) and Danwei […]

Hit-and-Run Epigenetic Editing Helps Breast Cells Evade Cycle Arrest

December 11, 2017

While a hit-and-run typically leads to an arrest, in the world of epigenetic editing it turns out to be the key to evading cell cycle arrest (senescence) and promoting the transformation of a law-abiding cell into a cancerous criminal! The hypermethylation of promoters at the wrong time and wrong place is a trademark of cancer, […]

One-Carbon, One Long Life: Methyl Donors Linked to Longevity

November 22, 2017

While manipulating DNA methylation has taken up most of our lifespans, the manipulation of methyl donors critical to this process may just be the key to making up for the lost time. During one-carbon metabolism, the essential amino acid methionine is metabolized into S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), a methyl donor responsible for DNA and histone methylation. Donation of […]

An endosiRNA Trap Shoots Down the Transposable Element Rebellion of Embryonic Development

November 12, 2017

During early embryonic development, our genome lets down its DNA methylation defenses and becomes vulnerable to rebellious transposable elements (TEs). However, those rebel scum are quickly met with a barrage of endogenous short interfering RNAs (endosiRNAs), all before they realize even realize that “It’s A Trap!” The mechanism of this cunning tactic employed by our […]

High-Resolution Hi-C Delivers High-End Chromatin Conformation Maps of Neural Development

November 2, 2017

Hi-C-based three-dimensional chromatin conformation analysis is currently living the high-life, with multiple high-impact studies recently employing this high-flying molecular technique to gain new insight into the cell cycle, fertilization, and reprogramming. Now, researchers under the high command of Boyan Bonev and Giacomo Cavalli (Université de Montpellier, France) have applied this high-class technique to understand how […]