Hi-C Captures Chromosome Contacts Critical to Cognition, CRISPR/Cas9 ConfirmsNovember 15, 2016In today’s world there’s not much you can be sure of, particularly when it comes to understanding the complexities of human cognition. Thankfully, the epigenome offers some much needed explanation, as demonstrated by the insight gained from DNA methylation maps of human neurodevelopment. However, genetic interactions created by 3-D chromosome structure have remained more of […]
Intergenerational Transmission of Extracellular dsRNA Filmed in C. elegansNovember 1, 2016Seeing is believing, whether it be a topic as hot as the upcoming presidential election or intergenerational epigenetic effects and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. While exciting evidence on the role of sperm RNA in mammals has begun to accumulate thanks to the labs of Mansuy, Bale, and Rando, an elegant C. elegans study from the lab […]
ChIP-SICAP – Your New Favorite Assay Flavor?November 1, 2016Maple-bacon, chocolate, and hedgehog? The list of potato chip flavors keeps on getting longer and crazier. Also getting longer is the list of different ChIP assay varieties (that’s chromatin immunoprecipitation for the uninitiated), with the most interesting new “taste sensation” emanating from the lab of Jeroen Krijgsveld (DFKZ/EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany). While chips are good for […]
Variation in CpG Methylation is Tied to Biological AgingOctober 19, 2016There aren’t many things in this world that we can be certain about, but aging marks an all too important exception. Towards the goal of understanding the marks of this unavoidable process, we’ve seen the epigenetic clock, which looks at CpG sites that are certainly differentially methylated as we age. However, a new perspective to […]
Meta-Analysis Reveals Grim Reaper is Keeping an Eye On Your Epigenetic ClockOctober 19, 2016They say ‘Seasons don’t fear the reaper’, and while the festivities of this season certainly favor the reaper, most of us dread the reaper’s favor. Our understanding of how to avoid that favor is now improving, thanks to some new insight from the epigenetic clock-watching lab of Steve Horvath at UCLA. The epigenetic clock consists […]
Cancer Stem Cells Refuse to be Linked to Linker Histone H1.0October 19, 2016It is widely known that tumor lesions harbor diverse subpopulations of cell types each genetically and phenotypically unique. However, it is not always clear which cell types are actually promoting or sustaining the tumor. Typically, tumors consist of two class of cells—a subpopulation of cells that are fully differentiated and possess little to none tumor […]
Two “Suite” Tools for Tackling Big Data in Cancer Epigenomics AnalysesOctober 4, 2016With all the new datasets available, making sense of epigenomics data can be like finding a needle in a hayfield, let alone a stack. Studies of epigenetics in human complex disease have been greatly aided by larger and larger databases, but identifying meaningful biological relationships using these databases is challenging given their size. Cancer studies […]
Reporter of Genomic Methylation Delivers Imprinting and Epigenome Editing InsightsOctober 3, 2016Here at EpiGenie we like to think of ourselves as reporters of genomic methylation, but two new studies from the lab of Rudolf Jaenisch at MIT give us a run for our money and demonstrate the utility of their reporter of genomic methylation (RGM). Using RGM, the talented group brings forth a deeper understanding of […]
m6A Enables XIST’s Repressive ExistenceSeptember 27, 2016Life can be hard out there for an X chromosome, particularly when faced with a well-known molecular form of sexual discrimination. The key to this repressive environment and resulting existential crisis is X-inactive specific transcript (XIST), a long non-coding (lnc)RNA known to undergo modifications such as cytosine methylation. However, RNA methylation is a rapidly evolving […]
DNA Methylation Detects Ovarian Cancer’s Tissue of OriginSeptember 13, 2016While epigenetic variation underlies the origin of many cancers, underlying epigenetic similarities can reveal cancer’s tissue of origin. High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) is the most common and serious type of epithelial ovarian cancer. However, there are two competing hypotheses about which tissue HGSC arises from. Ovarian surface epithelia (OSE) has been implicated, but the […]