A team of scientists has unveiled the first comprehensive maps and analyses of the epigenomes of a wide array of human cell and tissue types.
Epigenomes are patterns of chemical annotations to the genome that determine whether, how, and when genes are activated and because epigenomes orchestrate normal development of the body, and disruptions in epigenetic control are known to be involved in a wide range of disorders from cancer to autism to heart disease, the massive trove of data is expected to yield many new insights into human biology in both health and disease.
UC San Francisco's Joseph F. Costello said that the DNA sequence of the human genome is identical in all cells of the body, but cell types, such as heart, brain or skin cells, have unique characteristics and are uniquely susceptible to various diseases and by guiding how genes are expressed, epigenomes allow cells carrying the same DNA to differentiate into the more than 200 types found in the human body.
In cancer research, said Costello, the new data will hasten a merging of genomic and epigenomic perspectives that was already underway.
The authors write that in addition to the many implications for normal human biology of the most comprehensive map of the human epigenomic landscape so far, their data sets will be valuable in the study of human disease, as several companion papers explore in the context of autoimmune disease, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer.
The 24 papers describing human epigenomes will appear in print in the journal Nature and in six other journals under the aegis of Nature Publishing Group.
