DNA Methlyation Society's Main Objective: Fostering Communication Among Scientists

Author: Stanley Hattman As scientific progress and information has exploded in all areas of biomedical research, there has been a concomitant proliferation of journals. Keeping abreast of the published literature in all disciplines, as well as communication of other useful forms of information, has been made more difficult by this proliferation. To some measure, professional societies could be more active in promoting communication among their own members, as well as to the greater scientific community. This is one important objective of the DNA Methylation Society, which was founded last year, with Melanie Ehrlich, a professor of biochemistry at Tulane University, as its first president. It is almost a half-century since the discovery of modified bases in DNA in 1948 and "host-induced modification" in 1952. Initially, host-induced modification referred to a change in bacteriophage host range resulting from a single cycle of growth in a given strain of bacteria. Loss of growth ability, termed restriction, was shown to involve degradation of the viral DNA following injection into a "non-permissive" (or restricting) host. This fostered the notion that bacteria had the ability to confer, as well as recognize, "host specificity" on viral DNA. It was already known in the early 1960s that bacteria contain sequence-specific DNA-methyltransferases, which differ in their specificity. It wasn't long before DNA methylation was implicated as the primary mechanism for conferring "host specificity" to viral DNA. Later, it was shown that bacterial and plasmid DNAs were also subject to restriction-modification systems. These early observations eventually led to the discovery of "restriction nucleases," the sequence-specific endonucleases that are tools of the trade in all molecular biological research. DNA methylation is not confined to prokaryotes. In fact, it is universal in vertebrates and higher plants, often found among lower eukaryotes, and encoded by some viruses. Moreover, since the early days of studying host-induced modification, the number of systems has grown in which DNA methylation has been shown to play an important role in controlling some important cellular function. The examples include positively or negatively regulating gene transcription, maintaining X-chromosome inactivation in female mammals, directing DNA mismatch-repair, regulating the initiation of DNA replication, increasing the frequency of spontaneous mutagenesis, establishing genomic imprinting, maintaining the normal number of chromosomes, and contributing toward carcinogenesis. Only in some of these cases is the mechanism understood in which DNA methylation plays its role. Organisms that do not methylate their DNA probably use alternative mechanisms to achieve the same ends. Thus, the need for future investigation is particularly compelling. In fact, with the deepening appreciation of the biological importance of DNA methylation, there has been a growing number of investigators worldwide who have joined in research in this area. They represent a panoply of approaches, from the purely biological to the biochemical and genetic to the purely structural. For example, the last two years have witnessed both the demonstration of a requirement for DNA methylation during normal embryonic development in transgenic mice and the first solution of a cocrystal structure of a DNA-[cytosine-5] methyltransferase-substrate complex. The latter revealed a most surprising conformation of a reaction intermediate, namely, the first example of a base flipping out of the helix during protein-DNA interaction. As advances develop in a fast-moving and complex field, it is important for workers to have the ability to rapidly communicate with one another. Promoting better communication includes the sharing of research and instructional materials, such as information about technical methods, summaries of papers and preprints, strains and enzymes, journal reference databases, and lecture notes. With its E-mail network, which allows messages to be sent to all members at once, members of the DNA Methylation Society have had lively discourse, most recently on the development of improved methods for genomic sequencing. The DNA Methylation Society, with more than 200 members, is open to all scientists who are interested in DNA methylation. We invite our colleagues to obtain more information about the society by contacting either me or Roger Adams, co-vice presidents of the society. I can be reached at the Department of Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y. 14627. E-mail: shat@modDNA.biology.rochester.edu. Adams can be reached at the Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Division of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 866 U.K. E-mail: GBCA36@udcf.gla.ac.UK. In addition, the society recently established a World Wide Web home page (http://203.4.164.89/), featuring information and an application form. Stanley Hattman is a professor of biology at the University of Rochester. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #17, pg.13 , September 4, 1995) (Copyright © The Scientist, Inc.)

DNA Methlyation Society's Main Objective: Fostering Communication Among Scientists

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