chromatin

Mammal-Specific Protein Associates with Male Chromatin, Required for Male Meiosis

Friday, April 20th, 2007

A new paper available today in PLoS Genetics suggests that a mammal-specific protein (DMRT7) related to the invertebrate sexual regulators Doublesex and MAB-3 controls the transition from meiotic sex chromosome inactivation to postmeiotic sex chromatin in males (1).
Genes related to the sexual regulator Doublesex of Drosophila have been found to control sexual development in a [...]

Gadd45a Promotes Epigenetic Gene Activation by Repair-Mediated DNA Demethylation

Monday, March 5th, 2007

Nature has published a letter from researchers at the German Cancer Research Center involving their implication of the gene Gadd45a in one of the black boxes of epigenetic mechanisms: demethylation.
DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification that is essential for gene silencing and genome stability in many organisms. Although methyltransferases that promote DNA methylation are well [...]