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Old Fathers Pass on an Unwanted Aging DNA Methylation Profile to the Next Generation

March 1, 2018

Great looks, a well-worn leather jacket, and a wide-ranging collection of old vinyl records represent great examples of inheritances that fathers happily pass on to their grateful children. However, new findings from the lab of Dan Ehninger (German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Bonn, Germany) show that older dads can also pass on an intergenerational effect […]

The Single-Cell Trifecta: Nucleosome Occupancy, DNA Methylation, and Gene Expression

February 27, 2018

While recent advancements let us map the epigenome of a single-cell, the same studies can leave us a bit single-minded when facing the many layers of the epigenetic landscape. Thankfully, to quench our integrative omics thirst, a clever new technique reveals that just because you’re looking at single cells doesn’t mean you only need to […]

dCas9-Tet1 to the Rescue: Maintained DNA Demethylation of Fragile X Syndrome Neurons

February 26, 2018

The call for a rescue operation often makes humanity turn to its latest and greatest tools and equipment. Whether it’s firefighters with water jetpacks or cutting-edge epigenetic editing technology, threats to human kind don’t have it easy these days. In their latest report, the epigenetic emergency response team from the labs of Rudolf Jaenisch and […]

Placeholder Nucleosomes Prevent DNA Methylation to Promote Embryo Progress!

February 26, 2018

After coming up against an impassable obstacle, researchers often need to hold their place in one research line and open up another to explore new investigational avenues and uncover new and unexpected findings. The study of epigenetics during fertilization and the early development of human embryos remains a challenging task on multiple levels, thus making […]

DNA Methylation Links Prenatal Famine Exposure to Adulthood Metabolic Conditions 6 Decades Later!

February 18, 2018

Researchers from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands are back at it again: studying the long-term epigenetic effects of prenatal famine utilizing the Dutch Hunger Winter Cohort. The Dutch Hunger Winter was a famine that devastated the Netherlands in the winter of 1944-1945 amidst WWII, which produced a cohort that were in utero during […]

Oh Sugar! Gestational Fructose Exposure Linked to Long-Term Brain DNA Methylation Changes

February 16, 2018

Here at EpiGenie, we don’t like to sugar-coat our headlines. The sickly-sweet truth is that fructose can be pretty bad for your health. Fructose has become a common additive in many foods in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. Sugary drinks are one of the most common forms. Heavy soft drink consumption is linked to […]

Epigenetic Aging Analysis Suggests That TERT Isn´t the Anti-aging Target You Are Looking For!

February 13, 2018

This isn’t some sort of Jedi mind trick, we promise, but TERT may not be the anti-aging target you are looking for! TERT, or telomerase reverse transcriptase, plays an essential role in the elongation and maintenance of telomeres and as telomeres shorten with age, many surmise that activation of TERT represents an exciting approach to […]

Epigenetic Editing Misses the Mark: dCas9-DNMT3A Causes Off-Target Genome-Wide DNA Hypermethylation

February 12, 2018

While we’ve been captivated by the powerful applications of precision epigenetic editing via deactivated Cas9 (dCas9), we’ve also been mesmerized by the fact that epigenetic editing doesn’t always work as expected. Building on our need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, new findings from the lab of Alexander Meissner at […]

SunTag Casts Light on iPSC Reprogramming

February 6, 2018

While the DNA editing function of CRISPR/Cas9 systems may appear to hog the limelight, we believe that a new SunTag approach for CRISPR/Cas9-mediated induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) reprogramming via epigenome editing deserves its day in the sun! The exciting reprogramming strategy utilizes an endonuclease dead Cas9 (dCas9) fused to a repetitive protein scaffold known […]

Like a Fine Wine, Histone Variant H2A.Z Represses Memories and Accumulates with Age!

February 6, 2018

While aging works wonders for the taste of our ever-accumulating wine collection, the passage of the years is not as kind to our memories! To fully decipher the processes underlying learning and memory differences in the aging brain, the lab of Iva Zovkic at the University of Toronto Mississauga (Canada) recently expanded on past work […]