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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Finding Epimutations in the Genome Haystack

April 30, 2015

Trying to identify DNA methylation mutations with current technologies usually requires a lot of cells, making it a lot like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Getting down to looking at single cells is becoming possible, but requires you to look at the whole genome, making the hunt for epimutations difficult. Recent work from Silvia […]

Boosting Transcription with a Little Help from Histone Crotonylation

April 24, 2015

Every auto enthusiast knows that if you want to maximize the performance of your car, you’ve got to have the right parts in the right combination. While sometimes you may have to completely rebuild your engine, other times all you need is to upgrade to the latest system components. In a recent article published in […]

Pioneering Transcription Factors Wiggle Towards Pluripotency

April 24, 2015

Canoes, 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 Retroviral

April 24, 2015

Our 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 Answer

April 23, 2015

Finding 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 Speed

April 21, 2015

Christoph 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 Research

April 13, 2015

With 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 Acetylation

April 9, 2015

There’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 Cells

April 2, 2015

Mouse 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 Gender

March 31, 2015

A 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 […]