Connection Between Epigenome, Selective Mutability, Evolution, and Human Disease
Li, Harris et al., PLoS Genetics
Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine and elsewhere propose a "connection between the epigenome, selective mutability, evolution, and human disease" based on the findings of their study on associations of structural mutability with germline DNA methylation and with non-allelic homologous recombination mediated by low-copy repeats. "Combined evidence from four human sperm methylome maps, human genome evolution, structural polymorphisms in the human population, and previous genomic and disease studies consistently points to a strong association of germline hypomethylation and genomic instability," the Baylor-led team writes.
GPU-Based Cluster Aids Nanocarrier Simulations
A team at the University of Illinois at Chicago are using both traditional and GPU-based clusters at the National Center for Supercomputing Application (NCSA) to study nanocarriers. Like an empty bullet casing, nanocarriers could prove to provide a targeted delivery method for drugs needed to kill cancer cells.
The NCSA's clusters enabled the researchers to perform extensive atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of polyethylene glycol (PEG)-ylated phospholipid dendron-based micelles — aggregates of surfactant molecules dispersed in a liquid colloid — in which the micelles are characterized in pure water and ionic solutions.
"Our simulations are massive," says principal investigator Petr Kral. "They have up to 750,000 atoms and they need to be calculated for a relatively long time, up to 30 nanoseconds. That is why the supercomputer was very useful to us and very necessary."
While Kral and his collaborators developed their own GPU-based computer system in their lab, it lacked the power for their simulations they run. Their results were published last year in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Chemical Communications.