Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Clinical epigenetics is the application of molecular biology techniques detecting alterations in DNA methylation or histone modification to diagnose or study disorders characterized by heritable defects in the expression of a gene or genome. Applications include Rett syndrome, disorders of imprinting, uniparental inheritance of chromosomes and chromosome segments, and somatic epigenetic anomalies in cancers.
Rapid and facile detection of specific nucleic acid modifications could have numerous applications. Here the authors present Specific Terminal Mediated Polymerase Chain Reaction (STEM-PCR) as a generic and accessible approach, and demonstrate proof-of-principle cancer biomarker detection.
The histone reader PHF7 binds to cardiac super-enhancers and is a strong activator of the reprogramming of adult cardiac fibroblasts to induced cardiac-like myocytes.
