Publications

Dr A. Akoulitchev presented latest developments in the field on epigenetics and non-coding RNA, together with the latest validation results of the proprietary EpiSwitch technology in a series of applications for breast, prostate and skin cancers. The talk was hosted by Prof. Lucien Ooi, Chairman, Singapore General Hospital. Prof Ooi is currently Advisor to the National Cancer Centre Singapore and is Chairman, Division of Surgery at SGH, overseeing 11 surgical departments and several clinical support facilities. He is also Professor at Duke-NUS GMS and is overall Surgical Clerkship Director.

Why do some organisms senesce and die, while others exhibit negligible senescence with no loss of fertility over time? My group is using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, mammalian cell lines, and mouse models to develop new treatments for age-related conditions and to understand the conserved processes that contribute to ageing. To achieve this, we are collaborating with several research groups and Oxford-based Chronos Therapeutics.

To correctly read the information stored in our DNA genomes (the genetic code), cells must read another language that overlays it, the epigenetic code, which controls access to that information. A process such as transcription can only retrieve this information according to the access granted by the epigenome. The term epigenetics was coined in the 1940s by British embryologist and geneticist Conrad Waddington to describe “the interaction of genes with their environment…which bring the phenotype into being”. Now the term epigenetics (literally over or above genetics) refers to the extra layers of instructions that influence gene activity without altering the DNA sequence. There are three main components to the epigenetic code: (i) methylated cytosine residues in DNA; (ii) the range of post-translational modifications to the core histone proteins within the nucleosomes (referred to as the histone code); and (iii) RNA molecules, often non-coding RNA.

Human health is related to information stored in our genetic code, which is highly variable even amongst healthy individuals. Gene expression is orchestrated by numerous control elements that may be located anywhere in the genome, and can regulate distal genes by physically interacting with them. These DNA contacts can be mapped with the chromosome conformation capture and related technologies. Several studies now demonstrate that gene expression patterns are associated with specific chromatin structures, and may therefore correlate with chromatin conformation signatures. Here, we present an overview of genome organization and its relationship with gene expression. We also summarize how chromatin conformation signatures can be identified and discuss why they might represent ideal biomarkers of human disease in such genetically diverse populations.