Advances in Epigenetic Technology

Epigenetics refers to the collective heritable changes in phenotype that arise independent of genotype. Two broad areas of epigenetics are DNA methylation and histone modifications and numerous techniques have been invented to analyze epigenetic processes not only at the level of specific genes, but also to analyze epigenetic changes that occur in defined regions of the genome as well as genome-wide. Advances have also been made in techniques devised to assess the enzymes that mediate epigenetic processes. These methods that are currently driving the field of epigenetics will greatly facilitate continued expansion of this exponentially growing discipline of genetics.