The thrill can kill: murder by methylation.

Why babies of crack-cocaine mothers develop heart problems has always been a mystery. In this issue of Molecular Pharmacology, Zhang et al. (p. 1319) show that a specific methylation occurs at the protein kinase Cepsilon (PKCepsilon) promoter of the babies born of mother rats exposed to cocaine. This reduces the expression of PKCepsilon, a naturally cardioprotective enzyme, which provides a plausible molecular mechanism for cardiac failure.