Developmental Windows: Dutch Hunger WinterDecember 2, 2014Famine is never a good thing, particularly if you’re a developing fetus. And while the role of maternal diet in fetal programming is nothing new to the world of DNA methylation, there’s still a lot to be learned about the subtle variations. When it comes to growth and metabolism, timing of the environmental exposure appears is important, […]
DNMTs Divide Their Dynamic DNA Methylation LabourNovember 27, 2014Splitting up work amongst the team is always a sound strategy for success. We’ve seen that the TET family likes to divide it’s labour and now, not so suprisingly, the ever so famous DNA methyltransferases have also been caught working smart. Researchers from the Center for Individualized Medicine at the Mayo Clinic used acute and combined depletions […]
Two New Players for Better Differential Peak Detection in ChIP-SeqNovember 22, 2014Sometimes bioinformatics can seem a bit mystical, particularly when a tool arrives that makes you wonder what you were wasting your time doing before it. ChIP-seq is no stranger to this world and as a driver of a large proportion of epigenomic experimentation we’re also no stranger to the challenges of processing ChIP-seq data and peak calling. One of […]
Coffee Gets Your Baby’s Heart Going…the Wrong WayNovember 13, 2014There’s no denying the power of coffee, it seems that without it humanity wouldn’t have the concentration or energy needed to tackle the complexities of the epigenome. But as researchers from the University of Florida show, with consumption comes responsibility and a molecule powerful enough to help you complete the 180 from bed to breakfast, may […]
A New Methylation Signature: CpG Ravines as a CpG Island Sub-TypeNovember 13, 2014Islands and shores are always on the mind at this time of the year, but just because winter is coming doesn’t mean we need to put the rest of the CpGenome on the shelf. CpG Shores might be the regulatory master of CpG Islands but new features keep emerging, like CpG Canyons, and now a new sub-type of CpG Islands is coming […]
In the Epitranscriptome Clusters of Co-Methylation Define m6A’s FunctionNovember 13, 2014Lately, at the EpiGenie HQ, we’ve had our mind on methylation and our money on RNA. Not just limited to DNA or Cytosine, we’ve seen that N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is a highly dynamic mark in RNA that has a critical role in stem cell differentiation. Now researchers from the Northwestern Polytechnical University in China have set out to find how m6A dynamics work on […]
Breaking Barriers: Cloning Made Easier by Erasing Epigenetic MarksNovember 5, 2014If Star Wars is anything to go by, cloning techniques of the future will be able to create a whole army of clones in the blink of an eye. Yet, back on planet Earth, the cloning of today is still relatively inefficient. A new study published in Cell identifies an important epigenetic road block in […]
in vivo CRISPR Takes Aim at Key DNA Methylation Players in the BrainOctober 31, 2014Adding to the ever growing potential of genome editing, one of the latest breakthroughs from the lab of Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard puts CRISPR/Cas9 to the test with an interesting research trifecta of: in vivo genome editing focused on the brain genome editing that targeted DNA methylation machinery including key readers and writers. both […]
Histone Modification Reading Domains Crack Complex CombosOctober 30, 2014Having alternatives is always great, particularly when it comes to studying histone modifications. By using some recombinant proteins of histone reading domains, researchers from the lab of Albert Jeltsch at Stuttgart University (Germany) recently demonstrated that these domains might just one-up antibodies when it comes to deciphering the combos of the histone code. Lead author Goran Kungulovski shares that “Histone […]
Developmental Origin of Schizophrenia-Associated DNA MethylationOctober 30, 2014Schizophrenia is one complex disease, with a number of subtypes and an origin unknown. However, despite it’s complexity, recent evidence points toward an interaction between genes and environment that are mediated by the epigenome. Further adding to the complexity is the fact that most patients are treated with powerful antipsychotics that also remodel the epigenome in […]