FLICKR, BERIT WATKINA set of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the sperm of stressed male mice is associated with an altered stress response in the mammals’ offspring, a team led by investigators at the University of Pennsylvania showed in PNAS this week (October 19).
The study “shows a very nice role for noncoding RNA at the early embryonic stage for transmission of the transgenerational phenotype,” said Michael Skinner of Washington State University who was not involved in the study.
Skinner said he wonders whether the same phenotype might be transmitted to the stressed animals’ offspring’s offspring. “Probably the most important thing in terms of a limitation is this, and most of the other previous studies like it, did not try to go out to the next generation,” he told The Scientist.
ADRIAN SANBORN, NAJEEB TARAZI, EREZ LIEBERMAN AIDEN, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINECTCF binding indeed appears critical to the formation of chromatin loops, which help keep the genome compact, according to a computational analysis published in PNAS this week (October 19). Scientists at Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Genome Architecture in Houston, Texas, have provided evidence in support of chromatin loops as a primary feature of genomic organization.
“The finding that CTCF sites at anchor points tend to be convergent is ...
