Roughly half of the human genome is made up of repetitive DNA sequences, and yet their repetitive nature has made their study as difficult to decipher as James Brown lyrics on a scratched record. Recent evidence shows chromatin regulation of DNA repeats playing a role in gene regulation, genome integrity and chromosome maintenance, so scientists from the University of Lyon, France set out develop a new genomic tool, called RepArray to help them figure it out.
RepArray is a human, repeat focused, DNA microarray that includes representative repetitive sequences from:
- Transposon derived repeats
- Simple sequence repeats
- Tandem repeat sequences (i.e. centromeres and telomeres)
Combined with MeDIP methods, the folks in Lyon used RepArray to:
- Create repeat-specific methylation maps
- Distinguish between different epigenomes
- Obtain an overview of repetitive compartment transcriptional activity
Based on what they’ve seen so far, the authors think it’s possible for human DNA repeat sequences to be used as “sensors” for chromatin changes leading to disease, or perhaps as a diagnostic or prognostic tool. Find out more about RepArray and how it was developed, check out the article in Epigenetics, July 2009