Cigarette smoke (CS) has been consistently demonstrated to be an environmental risk factor for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), although the molecular pathogenic mechanisms involved are yet elucidated. Here, we propose different by which CS exposure can cause sporadic ALS pathogenesis. Oxidative stress and neuroinflammation widely implicated in pathogenesis, with blood–spinal cord barrier d...

Epigenetic changes play an essential role in cancer pathogenesis. It has been established by next-generation sequencing that more than 50% of the human cancers carry mutations in mechanisms involved in the organization of the chromatin and epigenetic regulations. DNA methylation is among the most common epigenetic changes in leukemia. In contrast to DNA mutations which are passively inherited f...

Plants have a high intrinsic capacity to regenerate from adult tissues, with the ability to reprogram adult cell fates. In contrast, epigenetic mechanisms have the potential to stabilize cell identity and maintain tissue organization. The question is whether epigenetic memory creates a barrier to reprogramming that needs to be erased or circumvented in plant regeneration. Early evidence suggest...

Alcohol consumption alters factors that modify gene expression without changing the DNA code (i.e., epigenetic modulators) in many organ systems, including the immune system. Alcohol enhances the risk for developing several serious medical conditions related to immune system dysfunction, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), liver cancer, and alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Binge...

sulfur mustard (sm, bis- (2-chloroethyl) sulphide) is a chemical warfare agent that causes dna alkylation, protein modification and membrane damage. sm can trigger several molecular pathways involved in inflammation and oxidative stress, which cause cell necrosis and apoptosis, and loss of cells integrity and function. epigenetic regulation of gene expression is a growing research topic and is ...

The timing and progression of DNA methylation changes during carcinogenesis are not completely understood. To develop a timeline of aberrant DNA methylation events during malignant transformation, we analyzed genome-wide DNA methylation patterns in an isogenic human mammary epithelial cell (HMEC) culture model of transformation. To acquire immortality and malignancy, the cultured finite lifespa...

Cloning mammals by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is highly inefficient. Most SCNT-generated embryos die after implantation because of unidentified, complex epigenetic errors in the process of postimplantation embryonic development. Here we identify the most upstream level of dysfunction leading to impaired development of clones by using RNAi against Xist, a gene responsible for X chromos...