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Chronic stress is increasingly implicated as a contributing factor in common diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. This Opinion article brings together evidence supporting the idea that stress can induce epigenetic changes that alter cell behaviour and thereby lead to disease.
Identity by descent (IBD) — the probability that two alleles descended from a common ancestor — is used in fundamental applications such as gene mapping and estimating heritability. The authors offer a solution to the confusion between IBD and identity by state (IBS) that is caused by the common practice of using dense SNPs to estimate IBD.
Batch effects can lead to incorrect biological conclusions but are not widely considered. The authors show that batch effects are relevant to a range of high-throughput 'omics' data sets and are crucial to address. They also explain how batch effects can be mitigated.
Recent evidence indicates that gene bookmarking — the combination of mitotic retention of transcription factors at promoters, histone modifications and DNA methylation — is a novel epigenetic mechanism that sustains cellular identity after mitosis. This Opinion article discusses the importance of bookmarking in biological control and disease.
Increasing evidence suggests functional similarities between promoters and insulators. The authors propose that these findings unify existing models of insulator function, provide new directions for understanding how insulators work and suggest that insulators have evolved from promoters.
