Epigenetics

Epigenetics research plays an important part in studies of both normal development and disease. Contributors of these 16 articles give students and nonspecialists biological mechanisms of the epigenetic machine, the epigenetic systems of plants, and epigenetics in relation to cancers, premature aging, longevity and the developmental origins of disease. Topics include DNA methylation and the mammalian genome, methods for the genome-wide and genome-specific analysis of DNA methylation levels and patterns, histone modifications, histone variants and nucleosome occupancy, molecular mechanisms of polycomb silencing, non-coding RNAs in gene regulation, plant epigenetics using a comparative approach, embryonic stem cell epigenetics, the biology of genomic imprinting, X chromosome inactivation, cancer epigenetics, the role of micro DNAs in human cancer, the impact of the environment on epigenetic regulation of gene expression and developmental programming, and trans-generational epigenetic inheritance. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)