The emerging science of epigenomics

One of the most exciting frontiers in both epigenetics and genome sciences is the new field of epigenomics. This new discipline promises novel insights into the genome because of its potential to detect quantitative alterations, multiplex modifications and regulatory sequences outside of genes. A number of new epigenomic strategies are emerging to exploit microarray formats with varying substrate choice, pre-processing and data analysis. These approaches are designed to detect large numbers of variations in DNA methylation and chro-matinmodification.Manygroups are joining forces toward developing anorganizedHumanEpigenomeProject to exploit these new technologies to better understand the basis of normal development and human disease. One of themost exciting frontiers in both epigenetics and genome sciences is the newfield of epigenomics or the study of epigenetic modification at a level much larger than a single gene. Epige-netics is the study of heritable changes other than those in the DNA sequence and encompasses two major modifications of DNA or chromatin: DNAmethylation, the covalent modification of cytosine, and post-translational modification of histones including methylation, acetylation, phosphorylation and sumoy