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The epigenome editors: How tools such as CRISPR offer new details about epigenetics

Nature Medicine volume 23, pages 900–903 (2017)Cite this article

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Over the next several years, Nestler's lab began to amass evidence to support this hypothesis. He and his colleagues found that drugs such as cocaine can alter the epigenome. But with each new experiment, Nestler butted up against the same stubborn problem: he had tools for altering the epigenome, but they weren't precise. He could dramatically alter the expression of genes that add or remove marks. But this strategy changed the epigenome at hundreds or even thousands of sites. Nestler had no way to target epigenetic tags on specific genes.

Marianne Rots, an epigenetics researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, has come up against the same roadblock while working with epigenetic drugs such as broad-acting histone-deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors, which disturb the entire genome. Although these drugs seem to work well for some diseases, such as cancer, “you do not really want to have this messy effect” if the goal is to understand epigenetic mechanisms, she says.

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  1. Cassandra Willyard is a freelance science writer in Madison, Wisconsin.

    • Cassandra Willyard
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  1. Cassandra Willyard
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Willyard, C. The epigenome editors: How tools such as CRISPR offer new details about epigenetics. Nat Med 23, 900–903 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0817-900

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