R-Loops and GC-skew Predicts Epigenetic Effects of CpG IslandsOctober 9, 2013With the EpiGenie Fortune Telling Machine in the shop most of the time, it’s pretty difficult for us to predict much of anything. (Yeah, we didn’t see the whole ‘twerking’ phenomenon coming either!) But some enterprising researchers have developed a way to classify and predict the epigenetic and transcriptional activities of various promoter regions based […]
Inducible Models Breathe New Life into Epigenetic Inheritance StudiesOctober 8, 2013Food, toxins, and stress can all have enormous effects on the epigenome, but pinning down the true epigenetic mechanisms at work is the tricky part. While it’s been difficult to determine mechanisms of action in standard animal models, new ones have been developed using Tetracyline-induced systems, that make it much simpler to tease out how […]
Is Cancer an Epigenomic Disease?October 7, 2013Discovering what ‘causes’ cancer has been a goal as elusive as hitting the Lottery by playing only the numbers in your birthdate. To complicate matters, most cases are unique events within themselves, adding a layer of heterogeneity that leads to even more hair-pulling frustration among researchers. However, cutting edge research has now revealed a possible […]
SNPs, Nutrition, and DNA Methylation with Dr. Steven ZeiselOctober 4, 2013Dr. Steven Zeisel discusses the intersection of genetics and epigenetics in nutrition. SNPs, Nutrition, and DNA Methylation Well, we think that there are a number of genetic variants, single nucleotide polymorphisms. I’ll call them SNPs. These SNPs are extremely common in one carbon metabolism, especially among Caucasians. And we are reporting that these SNPs […]
Get the Lead Out of Your EpigenomeOctober 1, 2013What’s mainly orange, sometimes a little black, and usually obese? Congratulations if you guessed Agouti (Avy) mice! (And you may want to consider spending less time in a vivarium) These chubby little creatures are well established as environmental epigenetics models because a number of environmental exposures are known to alter DNA methylation at the Avy […]
Charting Where Noncoding RNA Transcription Kicks OffSeptember 24, 2013While ‘Dark Matter’ is thought to constitute roughly 85% of the cosmos, our genomic dark matter (i.e. noncoding RNAs) makes up an even larger portion (~95%) of our genetic content. Leaving the vastness of outer space to astrophysicists, Dr. Bryan Venters and Dr. Franklin Pugh at Pennsylvania State University focused on creating a map of […]
Trinucleotide Repeat (TNR) Disease Cheat SheetSeptember 16, 2013Trinucleotide repeat (TNR) diseases are some of the latest disorders to be linked to epigenetic state. So Dr. Marguerite Evans-Galea and colleagues at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and The University of Melbourne, wrote up this review to act as a sort of cheat sheet for the mounting evidence of epigenetic mechanisms in TNR. This […]
Webinar: Epigenomics – One Molecule at a Time with Dr. Paul SolowaySeptember 16, 2013Dr. Paul Soloway, PhD discusses his latest work on technologies that enable the interrogation of epigenetic marks on a single molecule. **this webinar is no longer available** Epigenomic analyses are used for many applications, including discovering gene regulatory mechanisms; characterizing non-genetic transmission modes of adaptive and disease traits; identifying and detecting disease biomarkers; and for […]
Zymo ChIP DNA Clean & Concentrator™: A New Twist on Chromatin ImmunoprecipitationSeptember 10, 2013If you’re one of those researchers who has been avoiding ChIP experiments like the plague because of the aggravating low yields and poor quality ChIP DNA associated with traditional ChIP protocols, then it’s time to give the ChIP DNA Clean & Concentrator™ (ChIP DCC™) Kit from Zymo Research a whirl. The ChIP DCC™ is a […]
Mind Games: Sorting Out Brain Cell-type Specific MethylationSeptember 10, 2013The human brain is the prime example of “highly specialized and diverse functions arising from the same genetic program.” But that comes at steep price. Our most complex organ is, well…very complex. Not only do it’s epigenetic marks constantly change both spatially and temporally but it’s also mainly and almost equally composed of two very […]