Epigenetics News

Cell Reviews Epigenetics and Chromatin Organization

Feb 26, 2007 cancer, commentary, environmental alterations, imprinting, methylation, research articles

The journal Cell has released a special review issue, “Epigenetics and Chromatin Organization.” The issue contains 11 review articles, beginning with a review of one of the most exciting aspects of epigenetics: its effect on evolution.

According to classical evolutionary theory, phenotypic variation originates from random mutations that are independent of selective pressure. However, recent findings suggest that organisms have evolved mechanisms to influence the timing or genomic location of heritable variability. Hypervariable contingency loci and epigenetic switches increase the variability of specific phenotypes; error-prone DNA replicases produce bursts of variability in times of stress. Interestingly, these mechanisms seem to tune the variability of a given phenotype to match the variability of the acting selective pressure. Although these observations do not undermine Darwin’s theory, they suggest that selection and variability are less independent than once thought. Link

A nice summary of this review article is available at Gene Expression.

The other review articles include:

• The Mammalian Epigenome by Bernstein BE, Meissner A and Lander ES.
• The Epigenomics of Cancer by Jones PA and Baylin SB.
• Chromatin Modifications and Their Function by Kouzarides T.
• The Role of Chromatin During Transcription by Li B, Carey M, and Workman JL.
• Chromatin Challenges During DNA Replication and Repair by Groth A, Rocha W, Verreault A, and Almouzni G.
• Genome Regulation by Polycomb and Trithorax Proteins by Scuettengruber B, Chourrout D, Vervoort M, Leblanc B, and Cavalli G.
• Genetic and Epigenetic Regulators of Pluripotency by Surani MA, Hayashi K, and Hajkova P.
• Noncoding RNAs and Gene Silencing by Zaratiegui M, Irvine DV, and Martienssen RA.
• Noncoding RNAs and Intranuclear Positioning in Monoallelic Gene Expression by Yang PK and Kuroda MI.
• Beyond the Sequence: Cellular Organization of Genome Function by Misteli T.

This special review issue from Cell is a clear indication of the role that epigenetics is playing in changing the scope and direction of scientific research in many different areas. My hope is that epigenetics will continue to inspire more articles in the press and will become well known among both those in science and the general public. Link

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