Epigenetics

Extracted Attributes

• Etymology

  Greek prefix 'epi-' meaning 'over, outside of, around' or 'on top of/in addition to'.

• Definition

  The study of changes in gene expression that occur without altering the DNA sequence.

• Persistence

  Changes can persist through cell division and potentially across multiple generations.

• Field of Study

  Genetics

• Key Mechanisms

  Non-coding RNA sequences

• Related Concept

  Epigenetic code

• Application Example

  Cellular differentiation

• Influencing Factors

  Normal development

• Recent Research Application

  Explaining 'fat cell memory' in the context of obesity and weight loss maintenance.

Timeline

• Conrad Waddington introduced the term 'epigenetics' into modern biology, defining it as the 'whole complex of developmental processes' that lie between 'genotype and phenotype'. (Source: web_search_results)

  1942-XX-XX

• Robin Holliday defined epigenetics as 'the study of the mechanisms of temporal and spatial control of gene activity during the development of complex organisms'. (Source: web_search_results)

  1990-XX-XX

• Groundbreaking research from Switzerland explored 'Fat cell memory', a concept in Epigenetics that explains why it is difficult to maintain weight loss after battling Obesity, as cells retain metabolic traits from their obese state. (Source: related_documents)

  Recent

Epigenetics

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression that occur without altering the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix epi- (ἐπι- "over, outside of, around") in epigenetics implies features that are "on top of" or "in addition to" the traditional DNA sequence based mechanism of inheritance. Epigenetics usually involves changes that persist through cell division, and affect the regulation of gene expression. Such effects on cellular and physiological traits may result from environmental factors, or be part of normal development. The term also refers to the mechanism behind these changes: functionally relevant alterations to the genome that do not involve mutations in the nucleotide sequence. Examples of mechanisms that produce such changes are DNA methylation and histone modification, each of which alters how genes are expressed without altering the underlying DNA sequence. Further, non-coding RNA sequences have been shown to play a key role in the regulation of gene expression. Gene expression can be controlled through the action of repressor proteins that attach to silencer regions of the DNA. These epigenetic changes may last through cell divisions for the duration of the cell's life, and may also last for multiple generations, even though they do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism; instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently. One example of an epigenetic change in eukaryotic biology is the process of cellular differentiation. During morphogenesis, totipotent stem cells become the various pluripotent cell lines of the embryo, which in turn become fully differentiated cells. In other words, as a single fertilized egg cell – the zygote – continues to divide, the resulting daughter cells develop into the different cell types in an organism, including neurons, muscle cells, epithelium, endothelium of blood vessels, etc., by activating some genes while inhibiting the expression of others.

Web Search Results

• Epigenetics - Wikipedia

  In biology, epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression that happen without changes to the DNA sequence.( The Greek prefix _epi-_ (ἐπι- "over, outside of, around") in _epigenetics_ implies features that are "on top of" or "in addition to" the traditional (DNA sequence based) genetic mechanism of inheritance.( Epigenetics usually involves a change that is not erased by cell division, and affects the regulation of gene expression.( Such effects on cellular and physiological traits may [...] In 1990, Robin Holliday defined epigenetics as "the study of the mechanisms of temporal and spatial control of gene activity during the development of complex organisms."( More recent usage of the word in biology follows stricter definitions. As defined by Arthur Riggs "Arthur Riggs (geneticist)") and colleagues, it is "the study of mitotically and/or meiotically heritable changes in gene function that cannot be explained by changes in DNA sequence."( [...] The similarity of the word to "genetics" has generated many parallel usages. The "epigenome" is a parallel to the word "genome", referring to the overall epigenetic state of a cell, and epigenomics refers to global analyses of epigenetic changes across the entire genome.( The phrase "genetic code" has also been adapted – the "epigenetic code" has been used to describe the set of epigenetic features that create different phenotypes in different cells from the same underlying DNA sequence. Taken

• What Is Epigenetics? - Cleveland Clinic

  Gray gradient Gray gradient Search Icon Blue Cleveland Clinic logo # Epigenetics Epigenetics is the study of how our environment influences our genes by changing the chemicals attached to them. What we eat, our physical activity level, access to resources and more affect those chemicals, in turn shaping our health. Epigenetics can help scientists understand why diseases happen and explore new avenues for treatment. Advertisement [...] That’s the hope of scientists who study epigenetics. And that’s why epigenetics is a topic more and more people — including you — may want to learn about. Epigenetics is a relatively new field of study that looks at how certain chemicals inside your body’s cells control how your genes work. Scientists call these chemicals epigenetic marks or chemical signatures. Sometimes, these chemical signatures help your body become stronger or more resilient. Other times, they harm your health. [...] Epigenetics is one way that scientists learn how the things around us and the choices we make change the way our genes work. We often think of genes as factors we have no control over. After all, we inherit them from our biological parents. And from the moment we enter the world, those genes determine so much about us — from our eye color to our risk for certain diseases. Genes feel set in stone and predetermined. But what if we could change how those genes work in ways that improve our health?

• What is epigenetics?: MedlinePlus Genetics

  Epigenetics is the study of how cells control gene activity without changing the DNA sequence."Epi-"means on or above in Greek,and "epigenetic" describes factors beyond the genetic code. Epigenetic changes are modifications to DNA that regulate whether genes are turned on or off. These modifications are attached to DNA and do not change the sequence of DNA building blocks. Within the complete set of DNA in a cell (genome), all of the modifications that regulate the activity (expression) of the

• A brief history of epigenetics - ScienceDirect.com

  A report on the effects of ascites in patients with melanoma suggests a temporal association between tumor eradication by radiation therapy and increased antibody response to the cancer-testis antigen NY-ESO-1. Epigenetics refers to changes in gene expression that result without changes in the nucleotide sequence of the gene, the most common epigenetics are DNA methylation, histone modifications, alterations in nucleosome reconfiguration, and non-coding RNA expression. Epigenetic changes can [...] Epigenetics was defined as a heritable phenotypic change without changes in the DNA sequence . A broader view now defines it as a change in gene activity and expression that are not dependent on DNA sequence, and which may or may not be heritable . It is in the context of this later definition that we have tried to summarize the role of epigenetics and their regulators in pulmonary diseases. Show abstract Pulmonary disease such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, [...] The term “epigenetics” is based on the work of Conrad Waddington (1905 – 1975) ( He created “epigenetics” as a blend word of the terms "epigenesis", i.e. the formation of a complex organism from a single unit (cell, spore, or similar), and "genetics" ( With the fusion of the two words, he wanted to emphasize the influence of the genetic background in the developmental process. He was thus one of the first researchers to acknowledge the importance of genes and environment in embryology and

• Epigenetics: The origins and evolution of a fashionable topic

  In 1942 embryologist Conrad Waddington introduced the term “epigenetics” into modern biology, emphasizing its relationship to the classical concept of “epigenesis”. Waddington defined “epigenetics” as the “whole complex of developmental processes” that lie between “genotype and phenotype”. In his characterization of the “epigenotype” he speculated about a biological system in which “concatenations of processes [are] linked together in a network, so that a disturbance at an early stage may [...] epigenetics as “the study of mitotically and meiotically heritable changes in gene function that cannot be explained by changes in DNA sequences” was proposed (Riggs et al., 1996), followed by many others. In 2007, Adrian Bird proposed as definition of epigenetics “the structural adaptation of chromosomal regions so as to register, signal or perpetuate altered activity states” (Bird, 2007, 398). According to Felsenfeld (2014), most of these definitions do not distinguish between situations in [...] Most frequently, epigenetics is used to support the claim of a comprehensive paradigm shift in evolutionary biology, namely the justification of the idea of soft inheritance, often equated with “Lamarckian inheritance.” This question has been dealt with in greater detail elsewhere (Deichmann, 2016b) and will be summarized here only briefly.

• Instance Of

  Q5633421

• Inception Date

  1/1/2006

In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as marks) that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix epi- (ἐπι- "over, outside of, around") in epigenetics implies features that are "on top of" or "in addition to" the traditional genetic basis for inheritance. Epigenetics most often involves changes that affect the regulation of gene expression, but the term can also be used to describe any heritable phenotypic change. Such effects on cellular and physiological phenotypic traits may result from external or environmental factors, or be part of normal development. The term also refers to the mechanism of changes: functionally relevant alterations to the genome that do not involve mutation of the nucleotide sequence. Examples of mechanisms that produce such changes are DNA methylation and histone modification, each of which alters how genes are expressed without altering the underlying DNA sequence. Gene expression can be controlled through the action of repressor proteins that attach to silencer regions of the DNA. These epigenetic changes may last through cell divisions for the duration of the cell's life, and may also last for multiple generations, even though they do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism; instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently. One example of an epigenetic change in eukaryotic biology is the process of cellular differentiation. During morphogenesis, totipotent stem cells become the various pluripotent cell lines of the embryo, which in turn become fully differentiated cells. In other words, as a single fertilized egg cell – the zygote – continues to divide, the resulting daughter cells change into all the different cell types in an organism, including neurons, muscle cells, epithelium, endothelium of blood vessels, etc., by activating some genes while inhibiting the expression of others.