Enzymes that act on DNA are promising targets for anticancer therapeutics1. For example, the epigenetic enzyme DNMT1 is inhibited by 5-azacytidine, causing DNA hypomethylation and enhancing the function of tumor suppressor genes2. In concordance, the development of accurate and user-friendly assays to study DNA modifications has become pivotal to drug discovery. Traditional in vitro assays have...

Covalent nucleotide modifications in noncoding RNAs affect a plethora of biological processes, and new functions continue to be discovered even for well-known modifying enzymes. To systematically compare the functions of a large set of noncoding RNA modifications in gene regulation, we carried out ribosome profiling in budding yeast to characterize 57 nonessential genes involved in tRNA modific...

Three clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus resistant to gentamicin and other aminoglycosides have been examined for antibiotic modifying enzymes. The strains contain a number of these enzymes, most of them similar to those commonly found in aminoglycoside-resistant gram-negative strains. All three strains (and a transductant derived from one of them) contain two enzymes mediating gentamic...