Beyond the Four Bases: A Home Run for Synthetic Epigenetic Control?

Timothy Z Chang; James Kuo; Pamela A Silver

doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2019.03.016

Beyond the Four Bases: A Home Run for Synthetic Epigenetic Control?

Mol Cell. 2019 Apr 4;74(1):5-7. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2019.03.016.

Authors

Timothy Z Chang¹, James Kuo¹, Pamela A Silver²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
² Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: pamela_silver@hms.harvard.edu.

Abstract

Park et al. (2019) create a synthetic self-propagating adenine methylation system for epigenetic control in human cells. Targeting adenine allows their modular system to act orthogonally to most epigenetic processes, thereby opening the door for novel methods of controlling gene expression.

Publication types

Comment

MeSH terms

DNA Methylation*
Epigenesis, Genetic*
Gene Expression
Humans

Grants and funding

F32 GM125108/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States