Tag Archives: histones

October issue cover: What’s going on here?

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October2015Each month, when the new issue of Nature Genetics becomes available, we are often asked: What’s going on here?

So, starting with the October issue (a bit late, but better than never!) we will answer this burning question here on the blog.

This month’s cover image was submitted by the authors of the article on page 1158 of the issue: “Absence of canonical marks of active chromatin in developmentally regulated genes.”

The artwork was inspired by this painting by Salvador Dalí “Butterfly Landscape (The Great Masturbator in a Surrealist Landscape with D.N.A.)”. The authors provided the following description:

Two DNA regions in the style of Salvador Dalí, with butterflies representing activating histone marks. The DNA axis represents a developmental time course with the DNA fragment to the right constantly expressing branches (RNA) paralleled by decoration with active histone marks (butterflies). The DNA fragment to the left expresses RNA at one specific time point and is not decorated by active histone marks (even at that time point).

For a more information about the paper, see our recent blog post featuring Q&A with the authors.

The artwork on the cover is by Luisa Lente. This artist has worked with the authors before to produce journal cover images, including one for Genome Research and one for Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

What you always wanted to know about histones

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Nature Methods and Nature Biotechnology will host a live discussion on why histone modifications matter in health and disease.

Some call it a code, some call it a language. The fact is that core histone proteins that make up the nucloeosme can be modified by a range of post translational modifications (current tally is 16) and that these PTMs, individually or collectively, send a message to the transcription machinery, either attracting or repelling it.

If you have wondered about the nature of the histone code, if you have questions about the importance of its writers, readers and erasers, or wonder how these are changed in some diseases and what can be done about it, an upcoming webcast will give a chance to raise these questions.

On February 26 we will discuss the importance of histone modifications from two aspects. First:  What is the biology behind it? Which enzymes write the code and how important is crosstalk between different modifications?  Second: How can one efficiently target these enzymes to fight disease?

Ali Shilatifard and James Bradner

Our speakers, Ali Shilatifard and James Bradner, will present their views and then they will engage in a live discussion fueled by questions from the audience.

Sign up for the webcast, and post your questions here before February 26, or during the webcast on the event website.  Either way, we will try our best to get them answered.

Note: The live webcast has now concluded. Anyone who wants to see it may still register at the link above and view a recording of the webcast at their leisure.