Pioneering Transcription Factors Wiggle Towards PluripotencyApril 24, 2015Canoes, camels, cars and catamarans have carried human pioneers far and wide; taking us to undiscovered lands to encounter unseen beauty, encouraged by the hope of fame, glory, and a lust for adventure. How pioneer transcription factors brave the inhospitable exterior of a compacted DNA-histone complex to induce transcription of tightly guarded genes is, however, […]
Human Preimplantation Embryos Go RetroviralApril 24, 2015Our genomes are littered with tales of our evolutionary past, including infections from retroviruses that have left their mark in the vast expanses of the human genome. While most of the endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) have lost their protein coding potential, a class of human specific ERVs (HERVs) still possess intact open reading frames. Inspired by […]
At Risk of Autistic Offspring? Sperm DNA Methylation May Hold the AnswerApril 23, 2015Finding the origin of complex disease is no easy task but now it seems a seminal breakthrough has occurred. Andrew Feinberg and team at the John Hopkins University Center for Epigenetics have found a DNA methylation pattern in the sperm of fathers with an increased risk of fathering autistic children that is also present in brains […]
The Differentiation Race: Not all Cells Move at the Same SpeedApril 21, 2015Christoph Bock discusses his recent paper ‘Single-Cell DNA Methylome Sequencing and Bioinformatic Inference of Epigenomic Cell-State Dynamics‘ published in Cell Reports. Epigenetic Regulation of Cell States In this first section Christoph tells us why he is interested in studying the epigenetic regulation of cell states and how his new method helps to look at the epigenetics of […]
Bees Model Their Potential for Epigenomic ResearchApril 13, 2015With spring in the air, the honeybees are already out and buzzing about and now an international team from Australia and Poland have created a different type of buzz with their research into 5hmC and its effect of bee’s behaviour. The importance of epigenetics in bees has already been suggested with the finding that honeybees use miRNAs to enable their […]
CRISPR Gets Creative with Histone AcetylationApril 9, 2015There’s been a lot of firsts in the world of genome editing happening lately, from its application in human embryonic stem cells, the identification of a smaller more versatile Cas9, to its upgrade to efficiently using homology-directed repair. Now CRISPR-Cas9 is getting its feet wet with epigenome editing thanks to the clever folks in the Gersbach lab […]
DNMT1 Loss is Lethal in Human But Not Mouse Embryonic Stem CellsApril 2, 2015Mouse models have been great to science, they’ve given insight into humans in ways simply not possible in humans. However, while there are striking similarities in the epigenetics of mice and men, there are also undoubtedly some fundamental differences. Now, a team from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard consisting of the labs of Alexander Meissner, J. Keith Joung, and John […]
Sex On the Brain: DNA Methylation Defines GenderMarch 31, 2015A talented team from the University of Maryland has added some strong molecular evidence that DNA methylation is an active player in setting the sexual behaviors you’re born with. Sexuality has always been a complex topic. Typically it refers to presence or absence of certain sex organs. However, the concept of gender is more complex, as […]
H3K9me3: The Genomic Pacifier That Silences SINEsMarch 30, 2015Kids can be hard to handle, between dealing with drawing on the walls and public temper tantrums; therefore all parents need a successful tactic for keeping them under control. Short INterspersed Elements (SINEs) are like the chaotic kids of the genome. These repetitive sequences make up about 11% of our genome and because of their […]
The Long Route of MeCP2 in TranscriptionMarch 24, 2015A number of teams have already spent time in trying to uncover the path that leads from MeCP2 disruption to Rett syndrome, a severe neurodevelopmental disorder in the autism spectrum. Adding detail to MeCP2’s repressive function, a team led by Michael Greenberg gathered data from MeCP2 mouse mutants and patient samples, finding an unexpected clue in long-gene […]