Articles

Evidence for conserved DNA and histone H3 methylation reprogramming in mouse, bovine and rabbit zygotes

In mammals the parental genomes are epigenetically reprogrammed after fertilization. This reprogramming includes a rapid demethylation of the paternal (sperm-derived) chromosomes prior to DNA replication in zy...

Authors: Konstantin Lepikhov, Valeri Zakhartchenko, Ru Hao, Feikun Yang, Christine Wrenzycki, Heiner Niemann, Eckhard Wolf and Joern Walter

Both telomeric and non-telomeric DNA damage are determinants of mammalian cellular senescence

Cellular senescence is a state reached by normal mammalian cells after a finite number of cell divisions and is characterized by morphological and physiological changes including terminal cell-cycle arrest. Th...

Authors: Asako J Nakamura, Y Jeffrey Chiang, Karen S Hathcock, Izumi Horikawa, Olga A Sedelnikova, Richard J Hodes and William M Bonner

The fungus Neurospora crassa displays telomeric silencing mediated by multiple sirtuins and by methylation of histone H3 lysine 9

Silencing of genes inserted near telomeres provides a model to investigate the function of heterochromatin. We initiated a study of telomeric silencing in Neurospora crassa, a fungus that sports DNA methylation, ...

Authors: Kristina M Smith, Gregory O Kothe, Cindy B Matsen, Tamir K Khlafallah, Keyur K Adhvaryu, Melissa Hemphill, Michael Freitag, Mohammad R Motamedi and Eric U Selker

Rapid telomere motions in live human cells analyzed by highly time-resolved microscopy

Telomeres cap chromosome ends and protect the genome. We studied individual telomeres in live human cancer cells. In capturing telomere motions using quantitative imaging to acquire complete high-resolution th...

Authors: Xueying Wang, Zvi Kam, Peter M Carlton, Lifeng Xu, John W Sedat and Elizabeth H Blackburn

Spatial and temporal plasticity of chromatin during programmed DNA-reorganization in Stylonychia macronuclear development

In this study we exploit the unique genome organization of ciliates to characterize the biological function of histone modification patterns and chromatin plasticity for the processing of specific DNA sequence...

Authors: Jan Postberg, Katharina Heyse, Marion Cremer, Thomas Cremer and Hans J Lipps

Dicer regulates Xist promoter methylation in ES cells indirectly through transcriptional control of Dnmt3a

X chromosome inactivation is the mechanism used in mammals to achieve dosage compensation of X-linked genes in XX females relative to XY males. Chromosome silencing is triggered in cis by expression of the non-co...

Authors: Tatyana B Nesterova, Bilyana C Popova, Bradley S Cobb, Sara Norton, Claire E Senner, Y Amy Tang, Thomas Spruce, Tristan A Rodriguez, Takashi Sado, Matthias Merkenschlager and Neil Brockdorff

Welcome to Epigenetics & Chromatin

Authors: Steven Henikoff and Frank Grosveld