Intron-Encoded miRNA Sidekick to the RescueOctober 15, 2008Every great star has a sidekick who sometimes threatens to steal the show: Batman had Robin, Sherlock Holmes had Dr. Watson, and Hillary had Bill. Likewise, some proteins appear to have an intron-encoded miRNA sidekick that neutralizes the “bad guys” so that the protein can effectively perform its cellular function, as demonstrated in a recent […]
Good Twin/Bad Twin: Is Epigenetics to Blame?October 13, 2008The Evil Twin is a staple of the soap opera genre—you know, the long-lost, villainous sister who kidnaps her virtuous twin and assumes her life, only to be discovered years later when the Good Twin escapes from imprisonment on an alien-inhabited desert isle. But in real life, how can identical twins with the same genes […]
ncRNAs Pave the Way for Chromatin RemodelingOctober 6, 2008Researchers have been puzzled by the discovery of several-kilobase-long, polyadenylated transcripts that overlap functional coding regions but do not themselves encode proteins. A recent Nature paper by Kouji Hirota, Kunihiro Ohta, and co-workers at the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute (Japan), the University of Tokyo, and Boston College indicates that some of these ncRNAs are transcriptional […]
RNA-Directed DNA deMethylation: An Undiscovered Country in the RNA World?October 1, 2008Let’s face it: it’s an RNA world. In addition to RNA’s many genetic, catalytic, and structural roles, the discovery of small non-coding RNAs has unveiled an entire continent of epigenetic functions. Small RNAs act in processes such as mRNA destruction, translational inhibition, and DNA methylation. Now it appears that, at least in plants, small RNAs […]
How’s That For Gratitude: let-7 miRNA Targets Dicer’s Coding SequenceSeptember 30, 2008Recent evidence has shown that the let-7 miRNA bites the hand that feeds it . . . and in an unconventional way. By searching for short sequences conserved at the nucleotide level in the coding regions of 17 species, Hilary Coller and co-workers at Princeton University identified three let-7 target sites within the coding sequence […]
When Inhibitors Become Inhibited: miR 21 Becomes the PreySeptember 26, 2008It turns out that the small but mighty inhibitors of gene expression have an achilles heel and can be served up a taste of their own effect. Qihong Huang, Alexander Deiters, and colleagues at The Wistar Institute, North Carolina State University, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discovered the first small molecule inhibitor […]
Roadmap EpigenomicsSeptember 25, 2008If you’re looking to sneak your grant in on the earliest date for the Epigenomics of Human Health and Disease (R01) grant, time is ticking. Applications are being accepted starting this Sunday. That’s the right, the date says September 28th. For those of you looking for additional information, the grant information is listed below, but […]
miRNAs: The New Addition to the Biomarker BuffetSeptember 16, 2008Human blood serum is cellular buffet of different biological molecules sampled continuously from every tissue of the body. So it’s not surprising that many researchers have attempted to identify biomarkers in serum that reflect a particular physiological or disease state. Most of these potential biomarkers are proteins (important-yes, exciting-not really), but Zvi Bentwich, Ayelet Chajut, […]
The Many Faces of the miRNA-Argonaute ComplexSeptember 16, 2008Some might recall playing with Mr. Potato Head as a child (or maybe earlier this morning). By sticking different noses, mouths, eyes, shoes, or other accessories on the basic potato head module, you could generate a variety of silly-looking spuds. Similarly, the interaction of different accessory proteins with the miRNA-argonaute complex might determine the fate […]
DNA Methylation, miRNAs, and MetastasisSeptember 9, 2008OK this one is a week old, but we love a paper that addresses epigenetic regulation of epigenetic regulators, so we couldn’t resist a recent PNAS report that identified a miRNA DNA methylation signature for human cancer metastasis. Like proteins, miRNAs act as oncogenes, tumor suppressors, and metastatic mediators, and their expression can be influenced […]
