When Shi's group used the technique of RNA interference (RNAi) to reduce levels of the enzyme in human cells, specific histones were methylated and expression of nearby genes increased, the team reported in the 16 December online version of Cell. (sciencemag.org)
«We found that 5 to 10 percent of these chromosome modifications were different in children born through assisted reproduction, and this altered the expression of nearby genes,» Sapienza says. (scientificamerican.com)
One obvious category of such variants is «regulatory SNPs» whose alleles modulate the expression of nearby genes. (massgenomics.org)