Epigenomic complexity

Posted on 2. June 2009 by Vincent Giuliano

Some time ago I posted an item Everything relates to everything else – at least in the science of longevity.  Recent research shows that applies to epigenomic information.  For some time it has been known that epigenomic information can be stored as either patterns of DNA methylation or in the form of histone modifications.  See the earlier posts Epigenetics, epigenomics and aging, DNA methylation, personalized medicine and longevity and Histone acetylase and deacetylase inhibitors.  Both DNA methylation and histone modification can serve to silence genes and play important roles in the development of an organism. One paper comments “These modifications seem to be programmed for carrying out two separate biological functions: histone methylation blocks target-gene reactivation in the absence of transcriptional repressors, whereas DNA methylation prevents reprogramming to the undifferentiated state(ref).”    Apparently, there can be significant crosstalk between these two forms of data storage. “It has recently become apparent that DNA methylation and histone modification pathways can be dependent on one another, and that this crosstalk can be mediated by biochemical interactions between SET domain histone methyltransferases and DNA methyltransferases. Relationships between DNA methylation and histone modification have implications for understanding normal development as well as somatic cell reprogramming and tumorigenesis(ref).”

About Vincent Giuliano

Being a follower, connoisseur, and interpreter of longevity research is my latest career. I have been at this part-time for well over a decade, and in 2007 this became my mainline activity. In earlier reincarnations of my career. I was founding dean of a graduate school and a university professor at the State University of New York, a senior consultant working in a variety of fields at Arthur D. Little, Inc., Chief Scientist and C00 of Mirror Systems, a software company, and an international Internet consultant. I got off the ground with one of the earliest PhD's from Harvard in a field later to become known as computer science. In various ways I contributed to the Computer Revolution starting in the 1950s and the Internet Revolution starting in the late 1980s. I am now engaged in doing the same for The Longevity Revolution. I have published something like 200 books and papers as well as over 350 blog entries and have enjoyed various periods of notoriety. If you do a Google search on Vincent E. Giuliano, most if not all of the entries on the first few pages that come up will be ones relating to me. I have a general writings site at www.vincegiuliano.com and an extensive site of my art at www.giulianoart.com.
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