Category Archives: Plant Epigenetics

Farming with Epigenetics

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Chris Womack

Every once in a while, I stumble upon an enthusiastic mention of epigenetics on some agricultural site. This week, it was this one at the Cattle Site, which seems to be reposting this report (pdf) from the European Union’s Sustainable Animal Breeding (SABRE) project. Since epigenetics promises to offer people new ways to control gene expression — and therefore certain diseases, traits, developmental patterns, and so on — I’d assumed that it’d take root right away in agriculture (ta-dum dum). After all, engineered plants and animals became commonplace during the ’90s, when the technology was still pretty young. Heck, DNA sequencing was still a manual affair. But so far, it seems like agriculture hasn’t really embraced it yet. For this … Continue reading →

Posted in Applications, DNA Methylation, Plant Epigenetics | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Lost in a corn maze? : Developing Epigenetics based Agronomic Tools in Maize

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Nicole Kelesoglu

I just want to start this off by saying that I was NOT the woman who called the police yesterday, because her family was lost in a corn maze coincidently nearby New England Biolabs.  It could have easily been me – but I swear it wasn’t!  View the amusing story here. Ah autumn. It’s harvest time in New England. It’s usually a lot of fun. Going to the farm…picking apples, getting lost in corn mazes, riding tractor hay rides. Who doesn’t love this season? The epigenetics contribution to genetically food and crop science has been on my mind as a topic for a while now.  Everyone lauds a good cook.  But we all seldom appreciate the work done by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Bioinformatics, Biomarkers, Plant Epigenetics, Transcriptome microarray | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Epigenetics, Eh! to Promote Canadian Collaboration

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Nicole Kelesoglu

Late registration is still available online for Epigenetics Eh!, the Canadian Conference on Epigenetics, which is taking place in London, Ontario from May 4 to May 7th, 2011. Part of the stated mission for this conference is to promote a Canadian Epigenetics Research Network (EPIGENETICS CANADA). The epigenetic research areas of the speakers for this conference include, but are not limited to the following. Diabetes Early detection of cancer Leukemia Pluripotency in ES cells Proteomics to study protein import into the nucleus Genomic CNV and epigenetic changes in Neurobehavioral disorders Chromatin factors in brain development Molecular mechanisms underlying cell fate specification, proliferation, and differentiation of neural stem cells Genomic imprinting X chromosome inactivation Dicer expression and/or microRNA function. ING family … Continue reading →

Posted in Applications, Bioinformatics, Biomarkers, Cellular Biology, Chromatin Structure, DNA Methylation, Developmental Biology, Divergent Transcription, Evolutionary Epigenetics, Gene Regulation, Gene Silencing, Genetics, Hematology, Histone Modifications, Leukemia, Neuroscience, Non-coding RNA, Plant Epigenetics, Reproductive Biology, Stem Cells, Translational Research, chIP, siRNA | 2 Comments