Single-Cell Epigenetics of Human Embryos is No Longer too Cool for scCOOL-seq!June 24, 2018The single cells of the developing human embryo are kinda awesome, but maybe they’ve grown a tad arrogant, perhaps a little “too cool for school”? They always hang around alone or in small cliques of similar cells, while the hippest scientists have only recently developed techniques, such as scNOMe-seq and scNMT-seq, trendy enough to begin […]
Causation or Correlation? – First Evidence that DNA Methylation Alterations Cause AgingJune 17, 2018We all assume that water, good old H2O, has nothing to hide; however, dihydrogen monoxide has more than a few skeletons in its closet. For example, water is the leading cause of drowning while 100 percent of all people exposed to water will eventually die! It is easy to chalk up the second of these […]
Eyesight from the Blind: DNA Methylation Causes Cavefish Eye DegenerationJune 11, 2018While we are no strangers to the role of epigenetics in environmental adaption, the lab of Brant Weinstein at the National Institute of Health (Maryland, USA) has brought forth an example of environmental adaption so extreme that it provides profound insight into eye degeneration and blindness. The talented team chose to examine the Mexican tetra […]
SPRITE: A Refreshing New Approach for Identifying Higher-Order Genomic StructureJune 11, 2018Are you looking for a refreshing new nuclear organization assay this summer? Well look no further than SPRITE, it will quench your thirst for a better DNA conformation assay. There are a lot of methods for assessing higher-order DNA structure, but they mostly fall into two categories: proximity ligation and in situ imaging. Proximity ligation […]
Mammalian MicroRNA Travels into the Unknown Territory of the Nucleus to Epigenetically Silence Gene ExpressionJune 9, 2018While we are accustomed to seeing soccer players stroking a ball up and down grassy white-lined pitches and actors waltzing down the red carpet wearing a sharp suit or a stunning dress, we occasionally read news of these mammalian “celebrities” spending time in what could be deemed “unknown territory”, such as the corner store or […]
Elegant C. elegans Study “Drops” in to Show How Liquid Droplet Formation Mediates Epigenetic InheritanceMay 28, 2018While some studies may appear as drops in the scientific ocean, a drop-dead gorgeous paper on epigenetic inheritance recently made us all drop our guard! Although studies have established transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI) across several generations in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and the critical role of non-coding RNAs, we have yet to unravel the […]
Cognitive Benefits of Dad’s Enriched Environment Passed to Offspring Through Sperm miRNAsMay 25, 2018With Father’s Day just around the corner, it’s the time of year we think about how we can “enrich” Dad’s life with power tools, gift cards, and hand-made crafts. But maybe we should be looking into enriching Dad’s cognitive environment because it turns out that he can pass those benefits on. In mice, the environmental […]
Keeping it CLASSY with RNA-directed DNA Methylation in ArabidopsisMay 22, 2018There’s many ways to keep it classy, and while the recent Royal Wedding has demonstrated that some families illustrate their style with an eclectic taste for hats and fascinators, the CLASSY family of chromatin remodeling factors has just out-classed them with its chromatin tastes that shape RNA-directed DNA methylation. In Arabidopsis thaliana, RNA Pol-IV triggers […]
Sea Snails Thank RNA-induced DNA Methylation for the Long-term Memories!May 16, 2018Forget everything you know about memories (!) because a new study has turned our knowledge regarding memory formation on its head by showing the ability to transfer memories from animal-to-animal! Current dogma states that learning-induced modifications of synaptic connections underlie the storage of our long-term memory (LTM); however, recent studies have suggested that neuron cell […]
C. elegans Histone Memory of a Tropical VacationMay 14, 2018Most of us wouldn’t mind taking a tropical vacation, and we’re all likely to snap a few selfies to capture vacation memories. While the humble Caenorhabditis elegans may lack the latest phone and accompanying selfie stick, it makes up for it with epigenetic memory of warm weather vacations. More specifically, worms raised at higher temperatures undergo […]