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.
This Week in Nucleic Acids Research
Researchers at Spain's Universitat Pompeu Fabra show in a paper published online in advance in Nucleic Acids Research this week that a subset of genes dependent upon the transcription factor Pap1 "only require nuclear Pap1 for activation, whereas another subset of genes … do need oxidized Pap1 to form a heterodimer with the constitutively nuclear transcription factor Prr1." The Pompeu Fabra team adds that "the ability of Pap1 to bind and activate drug tolerance promoters is independent on Prr1, whereas its affinity for the antioxidant promoters is significantly enhanced upon association with Prr1," which suggests to the team that "the activation of both antioxidant and drug resistance genes in response to oxidative stress share a common inducer, H2O2, but alternative effectors."
In another paper published online in advance in Nucleic Acids Research, a team led by investigators at New Zealand's University of Otago compares the performance of three existing pipelines for aligning bisulphite converted sequencing reads, providing "provides guidance to advance sequence-based methylation data analysis for molecular biologists."
Finally, Anthony Bugaut and Shankar Balasubramanian at University of Cambridge discuss the roles of 5'-untranslated region RNA G-quadruplexes in translation regulation and targeting in a Nucleic Acids Research paper this week. In their review, Bugaut and Balasubramanian consider "progresses in the study of 5'-UTR RNA G-quadruplex-mediated translational control."