# Development of a cavitation enhancement technology to access archived tissues for epigenetic-based biomedical research

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2022 · $400,961

## Abstract

Project Summary
There is a growing appreciation for the importance of epigenetic regulatory mechanisms in both normal human
development and disease. The dynamic regulation of chromatin architecture is a frequently studied and central
epigenetic process. Mutations in chromatin-associated proteins have been linked to neurological disorders such
as intellectual disability, autism, and epilepsy, a variety of developmental syndromes, and detected in
approximately 50% of human cancers, many of which are recognized as driver mutations across multiple diverse
tumors. Nevertheless, many of the assays used to study chromatin biology remain cumbersome, expensive, or
lack experimental robustness, problems which have resulted in large gaps in our understanding of this critical
biological mechanism. Therefore, innovative new technologies that enable efficient and reproducible
interrogation of epigenetic mechanisms are badly needed.
We have invented a unique cavitation enhancement reagent that dramatically decreases the time and acoustic
energy required for genomic DNA fragmentation in a sonication device. This proposal aims to expand the
application of our cavitation enhancement technology to address the scientifically relevant challenge of extracting
high quality chromatin from archival tissues. Lengthy formaldehyde fixation (FF) followed by dehydration and
paraffin embedding (PE) is the standard method of archiving tissue samples. These FFPE tissue collections
contain a wealth of information on human disease. However, extraction of chromatin from these specimens has
proven virtually impossible because of the challenge of preserving relevant DNA-protein interactions. Preliminary
data suggest that our cavitation enhancement reagent has the potential to simplify and standardize chromatin
extraction from archived tissues, thereby greatly expanding the range of applications for FFPE-derived chromatin
in epigenetic-based biomedical research.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10381604
- **Project number:** 5R01GM138912-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** Ian J Davis
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $400,961
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-04-01 → 2025-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10381604

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10381604, Development of a cavitation enhancement technology to access archived tissues for epigenetic-based biomedical research (5R01GM138912-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10381604. Licensed CC0.

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