The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance

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Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth.

The result of those interactions is not predictable from the intrinsic development of either tissue but can only be understood at the level of their interaction. How is it that identical twins share exactly the same DNA and yet can exhibit dramatic differences in the way that they live and grow? The first chapter, by Schurmans takes a molecular perspective on epigenetics and deals with the role of chromatin modification in neural development. Carey explains that this only occurs in susceptible regions of the genome and that epigenetic reprogramming during early embryogenesis circumvents the passage of many undesirable or dangerous modifications. According to Carey, a "phenomenon is likely to be influenced by epigenetic alterations in DNA and its accompanying proteins" if there is genetic identity and phenotypic variability or if an organism continues to be influenced by an event long after this initiating event has occurred.The

Otherwise, we will continue to document correlations between variation in gene function and expression with phenotypic variation without a deeper understanding of how phenotypic variation is generated. The book is organized around themes and levels of interaction/processes in the biological hierarchy in which epigenetics acts.

On the contrary, the concept of “epigenetic” aging is thorough and chapter 13 eloquently explains the global decrease in methylation and changes to the telomere system that are associated with the development of cancer. Here, the concept is used in the Waddingtonian sense and the emphasis is on the emergent consequences of interactions between developmental components.

A child, less than three years old, is abused and neglected by his parents but subsequently is treated normally.

As to why organisms evoved such complex patterns of histone modifications to regulate gene expression, the author offers an elegant explanation. We shall now turn our attention to the epigenetic modifications at the molecular level which influence gene and protein expression. Minelli makes a case for defining null models in developmental biology and uses the phrase "developmental inertia" to describe the null conditions of developmental systems.

Such wandering isn't necessarily the best idea in academia but the breadth of experience is really valued in industry. That something else must be going on in addition to the instructions contained in the genetic code is clear from the following simple fact. Just over a decade since Matt Ridley's seminal Genome, Nessa Carey presents a hugely compelling explanation of the very latest from the frontline of modern biology. Explanations of development and evolution that focus on properties of processes or pathways, such as the Atchley and Hall (1991) model for mandibular development or Salazar-Ciudad and Jernvall's (2005) interactome for tooth development are epigenetic explanations. Carey’s experience of the biotechnology industry shows in her concluding remarks on the pros and cons of our growing understanding of epigenetics for drug discovery, and on understanding the impact of diet and environment on disease.

Another positive element in the book is that on several instances there is a pictorial illustration of the issue raised by the author so that the reader has the benefit to visually follow the sequence of events on the issue raised. And it rightly hogged the limelight when, just over a decade ago, the human genome project delivered the complete sequence of three billion base pairs.