Hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) is an independent risk factor of atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases. Unfortunately, Hcy-lowering strategies were found to have limited effects in reducing cardiovascular events. The underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Increasing evidence reveals a role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of HHcy. Homocysteine (Hcy) is a precursor of hydrogen sulfide ...

A major obstacle toward understanding how patterns of abnormal mammalian cytosine DNA methylation are established is the difficulty in quantitating the de novo methylation activities of DNA methyltransferases (DNMT) thought to catalyze these reactions. Here, we describe a novel method, using native human CpG island substrates from genes that frequently become hypermethylated in cancer, which ge...

We previously reported that microRNA-205 (miR-205) is downregulated by overexpression of the receptor tyrosine kinase ErbB2 and that ectopic transfection of miR-205 precursor decreases ErbB2 tumorigenicity in soft agar. In this study, we further analyzed the regulatory mechanisms linking ErbB2 overexpression and miR-205 downregulation. In ErbB2-overexpressing breast epithelial cells, miR-205 ex...

It is well established that aberrant gene regulation by epigenetic mechanisms can develop as a result of pathological processes such as cancer. Methylation of CpG islands is an important component of the epigenetic code and a number of genes become abnormally methylated during tumorigenesis. Some bioactive food components have been shown to have cancer inhibition activities by reducing DNA hype...

DNA methylation plays a key role in invertebrate acquisition and extinction memory. Honey bees have excellent olfactory learning, but the role of DNA methylation in memory formation has, to date, only been studied in Apis mellifera. We inhibited DNA methylation by inhibiting DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) with zebularine (zeb) and studied the resulting effects upon olfactory acquisition and extin...

5-azacytidine and 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine are clinically used to treat patients with blood neoplasia. Their antileukemic property is mediated by the trapping and the subsequent degradation of a family of proteins, the DNA methyltransferases (DNMT1, DNMT3A, and DNMT3B) leading to DNA demethylation, tumor suppressor gene re-expression and DNA damage. Here we studied the respective role of each DNM...

UNLABELLED Although aberrant DNA methylation patterning is a hallmark of cancer, the relevance of targeting DNA methyltransferases (DNMT) remains unclear for most tumors. In diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) we observed that chemoresistance is associated with aberrant DNA methylation programming. Prolonged exposure to low-dose DNMT inhibitors (DNMTI) reprogrammed chemoresistant cells to bec...

This review identifies mechanisms for altering DNA-histone interactions of cell chromatin to upregulate or downregulate gene expression that could serve as epigenetic targets for therapeutic interventions in autism. DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) can phosphorylate histone H3 at T6. Aided by protein kinase C β 1, the DNMT lysine-specific demethylase-1 prevents demethylation of H3 at K4. During a...