BACKGROUND Neonatal exposure to isoflurane may induce long-term memory impairment in mice. Histone acetylation is an important form of chromatin modification that regulates the transcription of genes required for memory formation. This study investigated whether neonatal isoflurane exposure-induced neurocognitive impairment is related to dysregulated histone acetylation in the hippocampus and w...

Background: Diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) is a heterogeneous disorder causing infertility, characterized by a decreased number of oocytes and high FSH level, the genetic cause of which is still unknown. The association between FMR1 premutations(50-200 CGG repeats) and the premature ovarian failure( POF) disease has suggested that FMR1 gene acts as a risk factor for POF and recently for DOR p...

Protein acetylation now rivals phosphorylation in frequency of occurrence but is incompletely understood. A picture is presented in which protein acetylation is linked to available energy via the NAD-dependent deacetylases. This model suggests that protein acetylation regulates metabolic strategy and also helps store energy in cells.

Ethanol treatment increases gene expression in the liver through mechanisms that are not clearly understood. Histone acetylation has been shown to induce transcriptional activation. We have investigated the characteristics and mechanisms of ethanol-induced histone H3 acetylation in rat hepatocytes. Immunocytochemical and immunoblot analysis revealed that ethanol treatment significantly increase...

Post-translational modifications of histones are essential in the regulation chromatin structure and function. Among these modifications, lysine acetylation is one most established. Earlier studies relied on use containing heterogeneous mixtures acetylated at multiple sites. Differentiating individual contribution single events towards thus great relevance. However, it difficult to access homog...

The recent literature provides evidence that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation and histone modification are crucial to gene transcription linked to synaptic plasticity in the mammalian brain--notably in the hippocampus--and memory formation. We measured global histone acetylation levels in the rat hippocampus at an early stage of spatial or fear memory formation. We found that H3, H...