DNA methylation

Scientists established an epigenetic mouse model for glioma, providing insight into how epigenetics can initiate cancer.

Urinary tract infections leave permanent epigenetic marks in the mouse bladder epithelium, reprogramming its response to subsequent infections, a study finds.

SARS-CoV-2 infection triggers structural changes in the host cell’s DNA, which provide a molecular explanation for long COVID, a new study suggests. 

Jumping genes are let loose in cancerous cells, with multiple effects on cell health.

Transposons may be key players in how tumors develop and spread, but they also keep cancer at bay in some circumstances.

An engineered methylation pattern persisted for four generations of mice, demonstrating transgenerational epigenetic inheritance can occur in mammals.

Repairing damaged DNA appears to drive aging by causing the loss of epigenetic information, but restoring that information reverses such effects, a study finds.

Although epigenetic changes were long thought to largely act on the genome, rather than as part of it, research is now showing that these patterns can, directly or indirectly, change the genetic code.

Evidence is mounting that epigenetic marks on DNA can influence future generations in a variety of ways. But how such phenomena might affect large-scale evolutionary processes is hotly debated.

Epigenetic events, such as methylation, during early brain development in mice occur in genomic regions associated with BMI in humans, according to a new study.

Some studies suggest that associations between the health of children and the experiences of their parents or grandparents may be due to epigenetic mechanisms, but confounding factors challenge this interpretation.

The concept of epigenetic inheritance has long been controversial. Some researchers hope that new data on cross-generational effects of environmental exposures will help settle the debate.

A pair of new studies finds that analyzing material from a Pap smear can reveal tumor risk in distant parts of the body, potentially allowing early interventions.

An epigenome-wide association study found more than a dozen methylation changes in placental DNA that correlated with expectant mothers’ self-reports of depression and stress during their pregnancy.

A study links the loss of DNA methylation across the genome—as is common in cancer—to the disruption of the 3-D compartments that organize the genome and to the timing of DNA replication.

Cells found in different branches of a tree have different patterns of DNA methylation, changes in which accumulate over time.

Researchers repaired what is otherwise irreversible damage in the animals’ ocular neurons, by activating transcription factors ordinarily used to generate induced pluripotent stem cells.