Nucleosomes are core particles involved in DNA packaging in eukaryotic cells. They affect gene expression levels  by regulating access of DNA to transcription factors and DNA binding proteins. Nucleosome modeling is not static and chaotic. The link between nucleosome dynamics and gene expression modulation still remains a mystery, driving Life Scientists to design clever nucleosome-based in vitro assays such as those we’ll be reviewing here.

EpiCypher is offering five fully funded EpiTitan™ Histone Peptide Array Screening & Services Grants, for which applications are to be submitted by September 10, 2014. Applications will be reviewed by an independant scientific community.

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in phenotype that exhibit no underlying changes in DNA sequence. Over the past several years there has been a significant increase in the number of epigenetic regulators as clinical targets, including Histone Deacetylases (HDAC), Bromodomain Proteins (BET), DOT1L, and EZH2. A number of these targets have FDA-approved drugs, or are in late stage clinical trials, to inhibit their function, demonstrating the adoption of supporting patients with diseases involving epigenetic targets.

DNA methylation and histone post-translational modifications are key epigenetic factors.

They regulate gene expression by interfering with the chromatin structure and the binding of effector proteins to post-translational modified histones (1).

Several experimental strategies to analyze such binding have recently been designed; histone modified peptide arrays being one of them.