1,720,960 research outputs found
Chromatin proteomic profiling reveals novel proteins associated with histone-marked genomic regions
Get PDFMore than a thousand proteins are thought to contribute to mammalian chromatin and its regulation, but our understanding of the genomic occupancy and function of most of these proteins is limited. Here we describe an approach, which we call “chromatin proteomic profiling,” to identify proteins associated with genomic regions marked by specifically modified histones. We used ChIP-MS to identify proteins associated with genomic regions marked by histones modified at specific lysine residues, including H3K27ac, H3K4me3, H3K79me2, H3K36me3, H3K9me3, and H4K20me3, in ES cells. We identified 332 known and 114 novel proteins associated with these histone-marked genomic segments. Many of the novel candidates have been implicated in various diseases, and their chromatin association may provide clues to disease mechanisms. More than 100 histone modifications have been described, so similar chromatin proteomic profiling studies should prove to be valuable for identifying many additional chromatin-associated proteins in a broad spectrum of cell types.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HG002668)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HG006046)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HD045022
Editing DNA Methylation in the Mammalian Genome
Get PDFMammalian DNA methylation is a critical epigenetic mechanism orchestrating gene expression networks in many biological processes. However, investigation of the functions of specific methylation events remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate that fusion of Tet1 or Dnmt3a with a catalytically inactive Cas9 (dCas9) enables targeted DNA methylation editing. Targeting of the dCas9-Tet1 or -Dnmt3a fusion protein to methylated or unmethylated promoter sequences caused activation or silencing, respectively, of an endogenous reporter. Targeted demethylation of the BDNF promoter IV or the MyoD distal enhancer by dCas9-Tet1 induced BDNF expression in post-mitotic neurons or activated MyoD facilitating reprogramming of fibroblasts into myoblasts, respectively. Targeted de novo methylation of a CTCF loop anchor site by dCas9-Dnmt3a blocked CTCF binding and interfered with DNA looping, causing altered gene expression in the neighboring loop. Finally, we show that these tools can edit DNA methylation in mice, demonstrating their wide utility for functional studies of epigenetic regulation.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HD045022)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R37-CA084198)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HG002668)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant GM114864
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
A Systematic Approach to Identify Candidate Transcription Factors that Control Cell Identity
Get PDFHundreds of transcription factors (TFs) are expressed in each cell type, but cell identity can be induced through the activity of just a small number of core TFs. Systematic identification of these core TFs for a wide variety of cell types is currently lacking and would establish a foundation for understanding the transcriptional control of cell identity in development, disease, and cell-based therapy. Here, we describe a computational approach that generates an atlas of candidate core TFs for a broad spectrum of human cells. The potential impact of the atlas was demonstrated via cellular reprogramming efforts where candidate core TFs proved capable of converting human fibroblasts to retinal pigment epithelial-like cells. These results suggest that candidate core TFs from the atlas will prove a useful starting point for studying transcriptional control of cell identity and reprogramming in many human cell types.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HG002668)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant CA146445)Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technolog
3D chromosome structure and chromatin proteomics
No full textThesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Biology, 2016.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "May 2016."Includes bibliographical references.The selective interpretation of the genome through transcription enables the production of every cell type's distinct gene expression program from a common genome. Transcription takes place within, and is controlled by, highly organized three-dimensional (3D) chromosome structures. The first part of the work presented here describes the generation of 3D chromosome regulatory landscape maps of human naive and primed embryonic stem cells. To create these 3D chromosome regulatory landscape maps, genome-wide enhancer and insulator locations were mapped and then placed into a 3D interaction framework formed by cohesin-mediated 3D chromosome structures. Enhancer (H3K27ac) and insulator (CTCF) locations were mapped using ChIP-sequencing, whereas 3D chromosome structures were detected by cohesin-ChIA-PET. 3D chromosome structures connecting insulators (CTCF-CTCF loops) were shown to form topologically associating domains (TADs) and insulated neighborhoods, which were mostly preserved in the transition between naive and primed states. Insulated neighborhoods are critical for proper gene expression, and their disruption leads to the improper regulation of local gene expression. Changes in enhancer-promoter loops occurred within preserved insulated neighborhoods during cell state transition. The CTCF anchors of CTCF-CTCF loops are conserved across species and are frequently mutated in cancer cells. These 3D chromosome regulatory landscapes provide a foundation for the future investigation of the relationship between chromosome structure and gene control in human development and disease. The work presented in the second part focuses on developing an approach called "chromatin proteomic profiling" to identify protein factors associated with various active and repressed portions of the genome marked by specific histone modifications. The histone modifications assayed by chromatin proteomic profiling are associated with genomic regions where specific transcriptional activities occur, thus implicating the identified proteins in these activities. This chromatin proteomic profiling study revealed a catalog of known, implicated, and novel proteins associated with these functionally characterized genomic regions.by Daniel Benjamin Dadon.Ph. D
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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