Epigenetics: In pathogenic bacteria (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 19, 2013, 18:14 (4176 days ago) @ David Turell

"Upon revisiting the data—and applying the new software—Schadt and colleagues discovered that along with the Shiga toxin, this particular E. coli had also adopted a methylase from the same phage. This methylation-laying enzyme resulted in a complete epigenetic makeover, the team learned. The group is still working on characterizing the effects of these epigenetic modifications, but Schadt said that the various pathways that were upregulated and downregulated in the bacterium, including changes in swarming and growth patterns, could have contributed to making it more virulent.
 
"The technology is transforming the study of bacterial genome modification, said Richard Roberts, chief scientific officer at New England Biolabs, who started collaborating with PacBio to investigate bacterial epigenetics in 2010. In addition to simply mapping the epigenomes of hundreds of bacteria species, including emerging pathogens, Roberts is adding to his library of knowledge on how bacteria use methylation to protect their genomes from the restriction enzymes they release to cut up invading viral DNA. Other researchers are working on understanding the role of methylation in the cell cycle.
 
"It's like you've been in a closed room for a long time, and you open the window and look out," said Roberts. "And there's a whole lot of stuff out there, and you don't know where to look.' "-
http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/35581/title/Decoding-Bacterial-Methylomes/-The genome is layer upon layer of complexity even in simple folks like bacteria.