Dynamic RNA Methylation Emerges as New Player in the Epigenetic LandscapeApril 29, 2013Methylation is a hot topic in the field of epigenetics whether it’s occurring on the cytosines of DNA or its histone protein friends. With a relatively well-known set of enzymes, methylation marks are dynamically modified in order to regulate gene expression. However, the revisiting of a RNA modification discovered in the 70’s has come to […]
RNA Methylation in lncRNAs Does XISTApril 24, 2013Building on work from the 1970s, the era of orange shag carpet and bell bottoms, researchers report that poly(A) RNA gets methylated on cytosines, just like other RNAs and DNA. These methylated cytosines—in the long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) HOTAIR and XIST—could also be important for their functions. Methylated cytosines in DNA are old news, and […]
Engineering (Epi)Genomes with CRISPR-CasMarch 14, 2013To really figure out what genes really do, you gotta get in there and get your hands dirty. That usually means deleting or modifying genes, or other regulatory regions. In a recent “Research Highlight” article, researchers at Johns Hopkins reviewed the three main ways to do this, including the increasingly popular CRISPR/Cas system. To engineer […]
EpiGenie Book Reviews: EpigeneticsMarch 11, 2013If you’ve spent any time browsing the EpiGenie site, then you already know that we find epigenetics pretty interesting. So, of course any book with the title of Epigenetics is going to grab our attention. Epigenetics edited by Jörg Tost, gathers information from several top scientists working in various facets of epigenetics to assemble a […]
lncRNA Regulates Tumor Suppressor Two WaysMarch 4, 2013A little redundancy can be a good thing. A team of researchers led by Dr. Kevin Morris at the Scripps Institute, in La Jolla, recently showed that a little redundancy in the regulation of PTEN, a tumor suppressor gene, can be pretty useful…but also really complicated. PTENpg1, a PTEN pseudogene, regulates PTEN via both sense […]
The Ups and Downs of miRNA and MeCP2 in Fetal BrainsFebruary 26, 2013What goes up must come down. And in the developing human brain, when miR-483-5p levels go up, it makes MeCP2 levels go down, according to researchers in a recent report. Problems with MeCP2 cause Rett Syndrome and other neurological disorders. MeCP2 levels are low in fetal stages of development, but high after birth in the […]
miRNAs that Bind Coding Sequences are Specialized for Inhibiting TranslationJanuary 28, 2013We all have our specialties—maybe yours is in histone modifications or maybe you can name every American Idol winner. In any case, miRNAs have some specialization too. Researchers now say that they’ve figured out what miRNAs that bind within the CDS, or coding sequence, of an mRNA do—they specialize in inhibiting translation. Most studies talk […]
mRNA Alternative Polyadenylation Lifestyles Comes into FocusJanuary 17, 2013As the only epigenetics media group based out of southern California, we’ve learned to be very accepting of alternative lifestyles, which is why this method caught our eye. mRNA are a diverse bunch, with all kinds of alternative polyadenylation that can affect their cellular localization and stability. RNA Seq has enabled unprecedented glimpses into the transcriptome, but […]
Top Epigenetics & ncRNA Conference Picks for Winter 2013December 27, 2012We’re on the verge of 2013. For those of you who want to up your epigenetics research game and have some fun in the process, we’ve got conferences you should definitely check out. The year starts off a little quiet on the numbers front, but the quality more than makes up for it. January […]
miR 126 Sponges: The Gift for the Stem Cell Researcher that has EverythingNovember 20, 2012The gift giving started bit early this year for the stem cell community as an international team of researchers shared key findings that could transform clinical applications of human blood stem cells. They wrapped up miR-126 binding sites in lentiviral vectors and put a serious smack down on miR-126 activity in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). […]