Tag Archives: diet

Epigenetics and Fat — Not Just Girth

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Chris Womack

In honor of the U.S. national day of gustatory indulgence, I thought I’d write about girth and fat. EpiExperts Twitter friend Graham Burdge and colleagues at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom just published an interesting paper exploring how the fat content of a mother rat’s diet affects the polyunsaturated fats in her offspring’s cells and plasma, as well as how that diet may accomplish that feat — apparently it involves promoter methylation of the gene Fads 2. But first, girth. My co-blogger Nicole recently tweeted a blog post from U.S. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, who shared a map by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control showing how obesity has swept the country since 1985. It’s bracing, … Continue reading →

Posted in DNA Methylation, Metabolism | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Canada Joins the International Human Epigenome Consortium – Q&A with Tomi Pastinen of Génome Québec

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Chris Womack

In an ambitious project investigating the interplay of environment, disease, and epigenetics, Canada is funneling $41 million into epigenomics research. It’s a multi-pronged effort to scrutinize a variety of tissue samples, disease states, and responses to environmental insults, so I called up Tomi Pastinen, the Canada research chair in human genetics, to learn more about the project. Here’s a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. But first, more about the project itself. It’s Canada’s entrée into the International Human Epigenome Consortium, and its announcement last week follows closely on the heels of last year’s launch of a European IHEC effort, BLUEPRINT (see our interview with the project’s Henk Stunnenberg here). While BLUEPRINT focused on blood epigenomes, which is common in … Continue reading →

Posted in Animal Models, Applications, DNA Methylation, Epigenome, Gene Regulation, Genomewide Methylation Profiling, Histone Modifications, Metabolism, Neuroscience, Next Gen Sequencing, Sodium Bisulfite Sequencing, Transcriptome | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Looking for Timebombs in the Genome — Retrotransposons & Epialleles

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Chris Womack

Buried in the mammal genome are more than a million virus-like stretches of DNA that epigenetic mechanisms work constantly to suppress — but once in a while, they slip up. If that happens nearby an important gene, it could mean physical changes, or even disease. And with bioinformatics and lab work, Muhammad Ekram and colleagues at Louisiana State University are trying to find out where these timebombs might be. They’ve found 143 candidates so far. They’re working with mice in Joomyeong Kim’s LSU lab, but the virus-like DNA sequences — retrotransposons — make up a large chunk of the genomes of most mammals. In mice, they’re about 40 percent of the genome, and in humans they account for more than … Continue reading →

Posted in Applications, DNA Methylation, Histone Modifications, Transcriptome | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Epigenetics and Genius

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Chris Womack

When Santiago Ramón y Cajal was 11, he blew up the town gate with a cannon he made. He was irascible, combative, and possibly a genius — at 54, he shared the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with rival Camillo Golgi for piecing together an early understanding of the nervous system. Still, Golgi believed the nervous system was all one connected “net,” and Ramón y Cajal fought for the view that it’s made of millions of interacting but separate cells. We’ve discovered several caveats, but Ramón y Cajal was pretty much right. He was right about a lot. So when Scientific American Mind asked its Twitter followers this week for geniuses its staff might’ve missed for a feature … Continue reading →

Posted in History & Trends | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Maybe a Few Moving Parts — Genes, Disease, and Priorities

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Chris Womack

In case you missed it, there’s a dust-up in the online bioscience community about whether or not the Human Genome Project and genomic association studies in general have been worth the effort. While it’s great to debate whether gene sequences are helping humanity understand disease, they’re only a part of those convoluted processes, and it’s a little strange that’s not part of the conversation. The latest salvo struck last week in the form of a Guardian column by Bioscience Resource Project Executive Director Jonathan Latham, ominously titled “The Failure of the Genome.” Among all the genetic findings for common illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer and mental illnesses, only a handful are of genuine significance for human health. Faulty genes … Continue reading →

Posted in Genetics, History & Trends, Nutrigenomics | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Eat Yourself Fitter? Diet, nutrition, and epigenetics.

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Chris Womack

Reader Della writes us on Twitter about two epigenetics tangents—diets for healthier gene expression and beliefs to hold (or “perceptions to gather,” I guess) for healthier gene expression. As it turns out, a few of us here at E3 were talking* about the epigenetics-diet connection too, so I’ll take a crack at the viewpoint in that Globe and Mail link above, which is based on this Clinical Epigenetics review by Syed Meeran and collegues at the University of Alabama. I’m sure we won’t neglect subject of epigenetics and beliefs for very long. The Globe and Mail article mentions the anti-cancer properties of broccoli, green tea, soy, grapes, tumeric, rosemary, and garlic. It also talks up the epigenetic benefits of a … Continue reading →

Posted in DNA Methylation, Gene Regulation, Histone Modifications, Nutrigenomics, Oncology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment