Anthocyanins are important health-promoting pigments that contribute significantly to the nutritional and commercial value of fruits. The anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway is well understood and the key regulatory genes controlling ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Apr 25, 2023
0
6
The protein PKMzeta is known to be associated with long-term memory formation. Neurological disorders such Alzheimer's disease, as well as depression and aging, correlate with reduced levels of this protein in the brain. ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Apr 18, 2023
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5
New research lead by Keith Slotkin, Ph.D., a member of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, opens the door for scientists to equip plants with the tools they need to adapt to rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), high ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 11, 2023
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49
Ectomycorrhizae is a symbiosis established between tree roots and soil-borne fungi. Intrinsic to temperate and boreal forest ecosystems, ectomycorrhizal symbiosis is critical for tree nutrition, especially water uptake, also ...
Ecology
Feb 21, 2023
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3
A team of genetic engineers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, working with a colleague from Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, has demonstrated transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in a methylation-edited ...
If one imagines the genome as an instruction manual for the functioning of a cell, every page of this manual is covered with annotations, highlights, and bookmarks. The role of some of these marks remains mysterious—do ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 20, 2023
0
110
Our genes are encoded in the DNA sequence of the genome, which is highly similar across the diverse cell types of our body. Yet, each cell can only access those genes that are in an epigenetically permissive state. The epigenome ...
Evolution
Jan 18, 2023
2
84
The co-option between viruses and humans plays important roles during human evolution. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), belonging to long terminal repeat retrotransposons, are a relic of ancient retroviral infection, fixed ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 16, 2023
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107
A new method to study specific changes in DNA after replication has been published as a technical report in Nature Cell Biology. Researchers developed a highly sensitive, quantitative mass spectrometry-based approach, called ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 12, 2023
0
65
As seasoned gardeners know, broccoli heads don't develop properly and can resemble cauliflower when grown in higher temperatures.
Molecular & Computational biology
Jan 9, 2023
0
23
DNA methylation is a type of chemical modification of DNA that can be inherited and subsequently removed without changing the original DNA sequence. As such, it is part of the epigenetic code and is also the best characterized epigenetic mechanism. Because methylation is a common capability of all viruses for self non-self identification, the epigenetic code could be a persistent remnant of ancient viral infection events.
DNA methylation involves the addition of a methyl group to DNA — for example, to the number 5 carbon of the cytosine pyrimidine ring — in this case with the specific effect of reducing gene expression. DNA methylation at the 5 position of cytosine has been found in every vertebrate examined. In adult somatic tissues, DNA methylation typically occurs in a CpG dinucleotide context; non-CpG methylation is prevalent in embryonic stem cells.
In plants, cytosines are methylated both symmetrically (CpG or CpNpG) and asymmetrically (CpNpNp), where N can be any nucleotide but guanine.
Research has suggested that long term memory storage in humans may be regulated by DNA methylation.
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