Applying whole-genome studies of epigenetic regulation to study human disease

Vol. 114, No. 1, 2006

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Applying whole-genome studies of epigenetic regulation to study human disease
J.D. Lieb^a, S. Beck^b, M.L. Bulyk^c, P. Farnham^d, N. Hattori^e, S. Henikoff^f, X.S. Liu^g, K. Okumura^h, K. Shiota^e, T. Ushijimaⁱ, J.M. Greally^j

^aDepartment of Biology and Carolina Center for Genome Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC (USA)
^bWellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge (UK)
^cDivision of Genetics, Department of Medicine, Department of Pathology, and Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (USA)
^dDepartment of Pharmacology and the Genome Center, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA (USA)
^eLaboratory of Cellular Biochemistry, Animal Resource Sciences/Veterinary Medical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo (Japan)
^fHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA (USA)
^gDepartment of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA (USA)
^hDepartment of Life Sciences, Faculty of Bioresources, Mie University, Mie (Japan)
ⁱCarcinogenesis Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo (Japan)
^jDepartments of Medicine (Hematology) and Molecular Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY (USA)

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Cytogenet Genome Res 2006;114:1-15 (DOI: 10.1159/000091922)

Abstract.

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Epigenetics may be broadly defined as the study of processes that produce a heritable phenotype that is not strictly dependent on DNA sequence. The definition has traditionally been restricted to processes that occur in the cell's nucleus, with the term 'heritable' having a loose meaning that can be applied to either the entire organism or single cells. For example, a process that produces a phenotype only in a specific cell type (for instance, chromatin-mediated maintenance of a differentiated state) is usually considered epigenetic even if it is not directly inherited, but instead must be re-established or actively maintained at each cell division. Given this definition, the field of epigenetics has long focused on proteins that affect DNA packaging, and thereby affect the utilization of the genetic information encoded in the DNA template. This focus extends to the enzymatic modification of those proteins, and to the enzymatic modification of the DNA template itself, primarily DNA methylation.

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Request reprints from John M. Greally
Departments of Medicine (Hematology) and Molecular Genetics
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, NY 10461 (USA)
telephone: +1 718 430 2875; fax: +1 718 824 3153
e-mail: jgreally@aecom.yu.edu

Article Information

Manuscript received: 26 September 2005
Accepted in revised form for publication by M. Schmid,: 6 October 2005.
Number of Print Pages : 15
Number of Figures : 2, Number of Tables : 0, Number of References : 200

Medline Abstract (ID 16717444)

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