Taking the lottery out of gene therapy

NEW SCIENTIST HEALTH ,Magazine issue 2789

GENE therapy should become a more exact science thanks to the discovery that it is possible to predict where a transferred gene is likely to be inserted into the recipient's DNA.

"Peter Cherepanov at Imperial College London, who was not part of the team, says now that the probability of an undesirable insertion can be estimated, it will become easier to balance the chance of success with the risk of side effects."

ORIGINAL PAPER: Deciphering the Code for Retroviral Integration Target Site Selection

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Catalysis and Mechanistic Insights into Sirtuin Activation.

Chembiochem. 2010 Nov 9. [Epub ahead of print]

 Dittenhafer-Reed KE, Feldman JL, Denu JM.

Department of Biomolecular Chemistry, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Keywords:  SIRT1, resveratrol,  SRT1720, mechanism by which they activate remains poorly defined,  type II diabetes, neurodegeneration, diseases associated with aging.

Repeat expansion affects both transcription initiation and elongation in friedreich ataxia cells

J Biol Chem. 2010 Dec 2. [Epub ahead of print]

Kumari D, Biacsi RE, Usdin K., NIH, United States.

Keywords: Expansion of a GAA·TTC-repeat, first intron, frataxin (FXN) gene, mRNA deficit, Friedreich ataxia (FRDA), DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin immuno-precipitation, chromatin, RNA polymerase II, histone H3 trimethylated on lysine 4, trimethylated H3K36.