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Webinar: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Getting Reliable ChIP Data From Difficult Samples

June 19, 2014

Johanna Samuelsson Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist at Active Motif covers some techniques to get killer data, even when your samples don’t make it easy. ChIP Overview I’m going to talk about chromatin immunoprecipitation, not necessarily focusing on all the specific details, but more the challenges with the technique, and those tricky samples that many of […]

Wild-Type Inheritance of DNA Methylation

June 12, 2014

It seems like all news lately is focused on the terrors of the world and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance has been no exception, usually with a strong focus on how an exposure or trauma finds a way to haunt generations. But now now an optimistic team from UCLA have shown that a lot can be learned from examining […]

Mechanosensitive DNA Methylation Keeps the Flow Going

June 12, 2014

Going with the flow is a sound strategy unless, of course, something is disturbing that flow. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University have shown that when blood flow is disturbed (d-flow) there is a responsive stream of gene expression changes triggered by mechanosensitive DNA methylation. Lead author Jessilyn Dunn shares that “It was […]

ChIP Shows Cas9 Can Miss the Mark

June 10, 2014

Staying on target has always been the CRISPR/Cas9 claim to genome editing fame, leading to incredible breakthroughs in the application of this bacterial immune system to mammals and as a cure for inherited disease. But now a sharpshooting team from the University of Virginia have used a clever application of ChIP-Seq to show that sometimes Cas9 can cause off-target effects. […]

5hmU: Tet’s Newest Base on the Block

June 9, 2014

While Apple seems focused on reducing complexity, the epigenome just can’t stop increasing it. Researchers from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich have shown that Tet enzymes oxidize not only the methyl group of methyl-cytosine (mC) but also thymine (T). An analog to the traditional oxidation of 5mC to 5hydroxymethyl-cytosine (5hmC), this case generates hydroxymethyl-uracil (5hmU). By tracing metabolically stable isotopes […]

CTCF Prevents Cancerous Landscapes

May 26, 2014

This is the time of year to spruce up the garden, but a recent report has us thinking more about a DNA Methylation landscaper: CTCF. Epigenetic marks have long been associated with cancer and resarchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Seattle) have shown that when the epigenetic groundskeepers (i.e. CTCF) are short handed, the epigenetic […]

lncRNAs Give a Shout Out to Imprinted Genes

May 22, 2014

For a while there, it didn’t seem like long non-coding RNAS (lncRNAs) had very much to say on the subject of genomic imprinting. But some new evidence shows that lncRNAs have found their voice, shouting loud and clear as a cross-talk conduit between imprinted regions. Researchers from Hebrew University (Jerusalem) introduced a new concept into […]

Genome Editing & iPSCs Reveal Matters of the Heart

May 15, 2014

Matters of the heart are always complicated (Just ask Dr. Phil!), but this is especially true when appropriate cardiac models aren’t available to medical researchers. Fortunately, a reverse engineering team from Harvard has found a way to combine the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), to create a “heart-on-chip” technology that’s […]

Synthetic DNA Adds Storage Capacity to Genome Editing

May 9, 2014

Just when you thought you’d mastered both your linguistic and scientific alphabets, it looks like it’s time to dust off the ol’ learning cap and re-learn your ATGCs because the two-base-pair genetic alphabet has just got some fancy new characters. A clever team from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla (California) have now expanded the inheritable […]

DNA Methylation and Diet: A Lot to Chew On

May 7, 2014

Just in time for Mother’s Day, a new published report finds that a mother’s diet at the conception of her child causes life-long epigenetic differences in the metastable epialleles of the child with “permanent phenotypic consequences”. While it may seem that the “you are what you eat” card has been played to death to explain […]