DNA methylation is an important epigenetic mechanism involved in gene regulation. Most methods focus on analysing DNA methylation averaged from multiple reads, yet these average methylation profiles o...

Precision-IVF enables high-resolution characterization of mouse embryonic genome activation.

Cis-regulatory elements, such as enhancers, play an essential role in coordinating gene expression programs during cellular transitions. As such, substantial efforts have been made to characterize enh...

Caroline Steel explores how synthetic biology is helping us to engineer life.

Background The first cell fate decisions in embryogenesis give rise to extraembryonic tissues, such as the yolk sac and placenta, which are essential for embryo survival. In mammals, extraembryonic cell types arising from these first lineage decisions show distinct DNA methylation patterning, including large partially methylated domains, gene body methylation and accumulation across developmental CpG island (CGI) promoters. Analysis of extraembryonic membranes beyond mammalian species has been limited. Using bisulphite-seq and RNA-seq, we comparatively define these epigenetic characteristics of extraembryonic tissues in both mouse and human. We then tested whether these features are conserved in the chicken extraembryonic membranes (EEMs) including the yolk sac, chorion and chorioallantoic membrane (CAM). Results Transcriptomic analysis revealed that embryonic day (E)4 yolk sac/chorion and E14 CAM express similar marker genes to the mouse chorionic trophoblast, supporting that the chicken chorionic ectoderm shares a ‘trophoblast-like’ cell identity. We find that partially methylated domains and transcription-linked gene body methylation patterning are highly conserved between mouse and human proliferative multipotent trophoblast cells but were not evident in the chicken EEMs. However, we find that methylation of CGIs associated with developmental genes was a conserved feature of mouse, human and chicken EEMs. Conclusions These findings support that features of the extraembryonic DNA methylation landscape have distinct underlying mechanisms. We find that only one feature is conserved across extant amniotes, suggesting distinct evolutionary pressures are associated with different features of EEM epigenetic landscape.

This study uses a precise and efficient clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) prime editing system to substitute lysine residues in histone H3, individually or in combinat...

The term ‘housekeeping gene’ evokes a sense of banality. These are the boring genes that hum in the background, impervious to cell state or stress. For a developmental biologist captivated by the impa...

Abstract. Histone H3 lysine 9 methylation (H3K9me) is a conserved epigenetic mark for transcriptional gene repression. In Arabidopsis, H3K9 dimethylation (

This protocol details the design principles and procedures for building programmable CRISPRi-based gene circuits, and for testing individual components and the assembled circuits in various plant spec...

Histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) at gene promoters is thought to play a central role in gene transcription. H3K4 methylation is deposited by the SET1 (A/B) and MLL (1-4) multi-protein comp...

Plants engineered with synthetic genetic programs can transform how we monitor and manage the extension of crop pests and diseases. Here, we establish a bioluminescent platform in Nicotiana benthamian...

A new tool to fine-tune plant genomes without changing their DNA could offer a fast and precise alternative to GM breeding and play a key role in developing resilient crops in response to climate chan...

Nature Communications - Binenbaum et al. demonstrate that precise CRISPR-based targeting of a key chromatin mark (H3K4me3) can switch on genes, boost disease resistance, and unlock meiotic...

A super-pangenome analysis incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes reveals that bryophytes exhibit a larger number of unique and lineage-specific gene families than vascular plants.

DNA methylation loss at transposable elements (TEs) can affect neighboring genes and be epigenetically inherited in plants, yet the determinants and significance of this additional system of inheritan...

Dynamic gene regulation requires precise cooperation between transcription factors and chromatin modifiers at regulatory elements to achieve not only activation or repression, but also appropriate tra...

In order to prevent damage by excess light, photosystem antennae can switch to an energy dissipative mode (termed non-photochemical quenching, NPQ). In higher plants, this switch is facilitated by the...

Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term) in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

Genetic variance is vital for breeding programs and mutant screening, yet traditional mutagenesis methods wrestle with genetic redundancy and a lack of specificity in gene targeting. Here the authors ...

Research Laboratory Technician (Fixed Term) in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

Circadian rhythms, daily oscillations with a free-running period of approximately 24 hours, have evolved in organisms across the kingdoms of life, enabling organisms to anticipate and adapt to environ...

Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term) in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

The cerebral cortex orchestrates complex cognitive functions, yet how its distinct temporal lineages are molecularly patterned during development remains unresolved. Here, we integrate single-cell tra...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

Osborne et al. show that the angiosperm-specific PRC2 subunit VRN2 is enriched in hypoxic regions of the Arabidopsis shoot, where it is required for stable deposition of H3K27me3 in key PIF4 target ge...

DNA methylation is maintained by forming self-reinforcing connections with other repressive chromatin modifications, resulting in stably silenced genes and transposons. However, these mechanisms fail ...

Temperature influences nucleosome dynamics, and thus chromatin, to regulate gene expression. Such mechanisms underlie the epigenetic silencing of Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) by prolonged cold....

H3K4me3 is a fundamental and highly conserved chromatin mark across eukaryotes, playing a central role in many genome-related processes, including transcription, maintenance of cell identity, DNA dama...