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Non-Watson-Crick Base Pairing in the miRNA Seed Region

August 12, 2014

First epigenetics knocked Mendel off the high horse of simple inheritance and now it’s taking a shot at Watson and Crick. It seems that not even base-pairing is safe these days, with microRNA targeting demonstrating that it is anything but simple. In its latest political statement this member of the non-coding party has been caught […]

CRISPR/Cas9 Get Upgraded sgRNA Targeting

August 12, 2014

The Crispr/Cas9 genome editing system has risen to fame so quickly it appears to be suffering from a case of the bends. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University however have just given it a bit more room by to breathe by overcoming an inherent bias that limits sequences the system can target. By modifying the short guide […]

Patient Specific iPSCs Team Up with CRISPR/Cas9

August 12, 2014

Some villains are so tough that it might take a few heroes to take them on. β-thalassemia is just that evil, an all too common genetic disease at the worldwide level. Caused by simple mutations in the hemoglobin beta (HBB) gene, this beast is Mendelian in nature. Which makes a perfect target for CRISPR/Cas9, a duo with […]

The Embryonic Journey of DNA Methylation Dynamics

August 5, 2014

Two recent Nature papers made big strides in understanding mammalian embryonic DNA methylation. The Meissner and Eggan team from Harvard focused in on CpG dynamics and how they compare to mice, specifically in terms of parental contribution. While the Qian and Tang team from Bejing examined how DNAm effects the epigenetic embryonic landscape in terms of histone […]

Gazing at Your Local Epiproteome with CRISPR-ChAP-MS

August 4, 2014

For those of you who were thinking the CRISPR/Cas9 system was just limited to genome editing, think again because the story just got a new twist. Almost like combining the bullet speed of Superman with the hi-tech gadgets of Batman, Alan Tackett and colleagues come up with a new tool to look at all the […]

Rapid Assessment of CRISPR Genome Editing

August 3, 2014

Well begun is half done. But if you are making a CRISPR knock-out mouse, it is hard to tell early enough whether you’ve begun well. Thankfully, a talented team of researchers in Japan led by Takayuki Sakurai have now optimized an assay that helps you do just that – predict if you are on the […]

The Long and Short of It: ZFNs are Choosey About Repeat Length

August 2, 2014

In a classic switcheroo, a talented research team led by ChongHua Ren inserted a repeat-flanked Zinc Finger Nuclease (ZFN) binding site right in the middle of the transcription factor Gal4, shifting control of Gal4 expression to capricious homologous recombination events. ZFNs edit the genome at specific locations by cutting DNA at the endonuclease site. When […]

Editor in Chief: TALEN, CRISPR and the iPSC Genome

August 2, 2014

Undeniably, the future of therapeutics is moving away from panacea miracle drugs and gravitating towards personalized treatments using gene therapy. Furthermore, the discovery of iPSCs verified the idea that individuals could have their own stem cell line available for therapeutic purposes—therapies that are made possible by editing the genome of iPSCs. Transcription activator-like effector (TALEN) and […]

CRISPR Paves the Way for Large Fragment Genome Editing

August 1, 2014

Traditional large genome editing techniques employ indirect cloning of large genomes into bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) plasmid. This technique is rather difficult and protracted. Thus, bypassing the BAC plasmid stage in large genome editing would be a big win for the application. The CRISPR-cas9 system, first discovered in Streptococcus pyogenes, is an important tool for […]

Hold Your ‘breadth’ – H3K4me3 Domain Size Matters

August 1, 2014

Apple may have finally thrown the gloves off in the race for larger screens, but it appears that this is old news for cells, who have been elevating the status of important genes for years by marking them with large billboards of H3K4 tri-methylation. These genes then get the VIP treatment from cellular machinery ensuring “enhanced […]