COLDAIR Kicks Off Histone Methylation Prep for WinterDecember 2, 2010As winter winds turn our noses into Rudolph lookalikes, flowering plants get busy at the epigenetic level. At the onset of winter, plants in temperate regions, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, undergo a process called vernalization where they prep to quickly flower once spring rolls back around. As Jae Bok Heo and Sibum Sung at the […]
Leukemia ALL Because of microRNA-125bNovember 30, 2010In a courtroom drama, sometimes the facts are so cut and dried that the defendant’s fate is all but sealed. New research from Marina Bousquet, a Lodish lab member at the Whitehead Institute, makes a strong case that miR-125b is essentially a smoking gun that causes leukemia. miR-125b is overexpressed in several different types of […]
miR-23a,27a,24-2 Cluster is Bad to the BoneNovember 19, 2010We’re not calling the miRNA 23a,27a,24-2 cluster a bunch of biological bad-guys, but if you’re a progenitor cell hoping to one day become an osteoblast, then they aren’t exactly your best friends. A new study reveals that the miRNA 23a,27a,24-2 cluster is at the center of a regulatory network that controls osteoblast differentiation. The new […]
Stem Cells Heartbroken Without miR-499November 8, 2010How can you mend a broken heart? Well if researchers at Stanford University are right, then one day all you’ll need are some stem cells and miR-499 to cure a bad case of heartache (well, at least the kind that follows a heart attack. The bad breakup kind will still be up to relationship experts […]
Prions Take Epigenetics to the ExtremeOctober 28, 2010Yeah, we know that somewhere between the X-games and base-jumping light beer ads, the term “Extreme” got a little played out. But, in their Perspective piece in Science, Randal Halfmann and Susan Lindquist make the case that certain proteins with unique folding properties, called prions, deserve the “extreme” label. Prions are proteins that are stably […]
Pardon the Epigenetic DisruptionOctober 28, 2010One of the great things about stem cells is how they seem to do just about anything. These days, stem cells have more Apps than an iPad, and in the new issue of Science we find one more: using stem cells to screen for “epigenetic disruptors”. The proposed idea is to use the built-in developmental […]
Take a Look: NCBI Epigenomics Sample BrowserOctober 26, 2010Our friends at the NCBI clued us in to one of their newest free tools that should prove to be a big help to anyone wanting to sort through next-gen sequencing data from epigenomic studies. NCBI’s new Sample Browser, located on its Epigenomics page, lets users search, access and analyze sequencing data from various publicly […]
The miRNA Trade Deficit in CancerOctober 25, 2010Balancing imports and exports can be a tough task for any entity. It turns out cancer cells have a major issues when it comes to exporting pre-miRNA between the nucleus and cytoplasm that can have a pretty nasty impact on cellular homeostasis. miRNA expression profiles in tumors typically show a down regulation of miRNA expression. […]
miRNA Sponges Making a Big SplashOctober 15, 2010A few years back synthetic miRNA decoys, nicknamed “miRNA sponges”, were developed as an innovative new way to inhibit miRNA activity by bumping up the number of miRNA targets to “soak up” a specific miRNA. Now recent reports are popping up showing evidence that naturally occurring miRNA sponges have been around all along, we just […]
miRNAs Host New Variety ShowOctober 5, 2010If variety is the spice of life, then miRNAs are a bowl of 3-alarm Texas chili. A new study in the journal RNA used NextGen sequencing techniques to reveal that miRNAs show quite a bit of sequence variety, even within individual miRNA species. The research, conducted by Lik Wee Lee and colleagues at the Institute […]