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Research by an international consortium has revealed new information on hematopoiesis and shed new light on the etiology
of blood diseases.
The consortium, Functional Annotation of the Mammalian Genome (FANTOM), reported the results of this research in Blood.*
The investigators identified epigenetic regulators of hematopoiesis and uncovered the epigenetic and transcriptional changes that occur during granulopoiesis.
They “redefined” the mast cell transcriptome and mapped the enhancer and promoter landscapes of monocytes, conventional T cells, and regulatory T cells.
By pinpointing the locations of enhancers and promoters, the group was able to correlate them with activity in specific genes.
“Until this point, researchers could only recognize the unique signatures of enhancers and promoters,” said FANTOM investigator Alistair R.R. Forrest, PhD, of the RIKEN Centre for Life Science Technology in Yokohama, Japan.
“However, their exact location, as well as the association of specific enhancers to specific blood cells, remained unclear.”
Knowing the location of enhancers and promoters will improve experiments designed to determine how genes become activated, according to the investigators. And this could potentially lead to strategies for preventing or treating malignancies.
“The specific genetic alterations that are responsible for a normal cell turning into a cancer cell show up in the levels of messenger RNA in the cell, and these differences are often very subtle,” Dr Forrest said.
“Now that we have these incredibly detailed pictures of each of these cell types, we can now work backwards to compare cancer cells to the cells they came from originally to better understand what may have triggered the cells to malfunction, so we will be better equipped to develop new and more effective therapies.” 
*The studies include:
High-throughput transcription profiling identifies putative epigenetic regulators of hematopoiesis
Redefinition of the human mast cell transcriptome by deep-CAGE sequencing
Transcription and enhancer profiling in human monocyte subsets
The enhancer and promoter landscape of human regulatory and conventional T-cell subpopulations.
Research by an international consortium has revealed new information on hematopoiesis and shed new light on the etiology
of blood diseases.
The consortium, Functional Annotation of the Mammalian Genome (FANTOM), reported the results of this research in Blood.*
The investigators identified epigenetic regulators of hematopoiesis and uncovered the epigenetic and transcriptional changes that occur during granulopoiesis.
They “redefined” the mast cell transcriptome and mapped the enhancer and promoter landscapes of monocytes, conventional T cells, and regulatory T cells.
By pinpointing the locations of enhancers and promoters, the group was able to correlate them with activity in specific genes.
“Until this point, researchers could only recognize the unique signatures of enhancers and promoters,” said FANTOM investigator Alistair R.R. Forrest, PhD, of the RIKEN Centre for Life Science Technology in Yokohama, Japan.
“However, their exact location, as well as the association of specific enhancers to specific blood cells, remained unclear.”
Knowing the location of enhancers and promoters will improve experiments designed to determine how genes become activated, according to the investigators. And this could potentially lead to strategies for preventing or treating malignancies.
“The specific genetic alterations that are responsible for a normal cell turning into a cancer cell show up in the levels of messenger RNA in the cell, and these differences are often very subtle,” Dr Forrest said.
“Now that we have these incredibly detailed pictures of each of these cell types, we can now work backwards to compare cancer cells to the cells they came from originally to better understand what may have triggered the cells to malfunction, so we will be better equipped to develop new and more effective therapies.”
*The studies include:
High-throughput transcription profiling identifies putative epigenetic regulators of hematopoiesis
Redefinition of the human mast cell transcriptome by deep-CAGE sequencing
Transcription and enhancer profiling in human monocyte subsets
The enhancer and promoter landscape of human regulatory and conventional T-cell subpopulations.
Research by an international consortium has revealed new information on hematopoiesis and shed new light on the etiology
of blood diseases.
The consortium, Functional Annotation of the Mammalian Genome (FANTOM), reported the results of this research in Blood.*
The investigators identified epigenetic regulators of hematopoiesis and uncovered the epigenetic and transcriptional changes that occur during granulopoiesis.
They “redefined” the mast cell transcriptome and mapped the enhancer and promoter landscapes of monocytes, conventional T cells, and regulatory T cells.
By pinpointing the locations of enhancers and promoters, the group was able to correlate them with activity in specific genes.
“Until this point, researchers could only recognize the unique signatures of enhancers and promoters,” said FANTOM investigator Alistair R.R. Forrest, PhD, of the RIKEN Centre for Life Science Technology in Yokohama, Japan.
“However, their exact location, as well as the association of specific enhancers to specific blood cells, remained unclear.”
Knowing the location of enhancers and promoters will improve experiments designed to determine how genes become activated, according to the investigators. And this could potentially lead to strategies for preventing or treating malignancies.
“The specific genetic alterations that are responsible for a normal cell turning into a cancer cell show up in the levels of messenger RNA in the cell, and these differences are often very subtle,” Dr Forrest said.
“Now that we have these incredibly detailed pictures of each of these cell types, we can now work backwards to compare cancer cells to the cells they came from originally to better understand what may have triggered the cells to malfunction, so we will be better equipped to develop new and more effective therapies.”
*The studies include:
High-throughput transcription profiling identifies putative epigenetic regulators of hematopoiesis
Redefinition of the human mast cell transcriptome by deep-CAGE sequencing
Transcription and enhancer profiling in human monocyte subsets
The enhancer and promoter landscape of human regulatory and conventional T-cell subpopulations.