Mechanisms for inheriting phenotype outside of the genomic DNA sequence.
Often refers to dna-methylation at cpg sites.
Questions tagged [epigenetics]
99 questions
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Can rats pass on memories of a maze to their offspring?
A friend of mine told me once about a documentary movie he saw some years ago. On this movie he saw scientists talking about particular experiment. This experiment involved rats and probably electrical traps. The rat had to get to the cheese, there…
Osjan
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Regulation of chromatin structure
Recently, I reviewed the different levels of chromatin structure. The primary level is nucleosomes, where DNA is bound to histones, and has structural similarity to "beads on a string." The secondary level is a 30nm fiber, and the tertiary level is…
Daniel Standage
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Is it the case that all changes in phenotype during life are not inheritable?
This came up in a talk with a friend. I wanted to clear this doubt. I've read about it before and did again after her remark (my thoughts didn't change: her concept is Lamarck's, not Darwin's), but wanted to clarify.
Regarding Evolution, nothing,…
Hector
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How are epigenetic marks transmitted during cell division?
As far as I know, this is one of the biggest questions in the epigenetic field: how are the epigenetic marks like histone modifications propagated through cell division? A lot is already known about DNA methylation (e.g. as in How does “inheritance…
Gergana Vandova
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Transmission of epigenetic regulation through surrogate mother
I know the basics of epigenetics, but I do not know how epigenetic mechanisms are transmitted from parents to children (or if there is even enough literature to derive a consensus). My question is relates to surrogate motherhood, in which an egg is…
Daniel Standage
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Can methylation from DNA get copied to RNA during transcription?
Methylation on gene-body and 3'UTRs if copied to mRNA can potentially regulate post-transcription modifications or expression regulation. But I'm not sure if they are maintained after transcription or if they get all de-novo methylation.
Garima Kushwaha
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Defining paper(s) in epigenetics
For someone who is interested in learning about the discovery of epigenetics, which are the foundational defining papers in the area?
Daniel Standage
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How do CpG islands remain unmethylated?
In most of the genome CpG sites are pretty much always methylated, but CpG islands are instead often unmethylated. This has been linked to the fact that they often are associated to transcripted genes.
What are the current theories on the…
nico
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Why is the 3'UTR region highly methylated in most of the human genes?
Most of the human genes are found to be highly methylated in their 3'UTR region (0.8-0.9%). I was wondering if there is any specific reason for this?
Garima Kushwaha
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What are the criteria for determining the influence of epigenetic factors?
Isolating a gene or sets of genes in diseases sometimes isn't enough to determine penetrance - epigenetic factors can have a significant effect. What are the criteria in determining whether epigenetic factors are significant?
ghchinoy
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Standard letter for 5-methylcytosine
I'm working on a piece of software that computes melting temperatures for nucleic acid duplexes, and I'm about to add support for 5-methylcytosine as a nucleotide base. At the moment, the bases accepted by the program are adenine, cytosine,…
John Gowers
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Are prions an important driver in evolution?
I understand that prions have been implicated in the passing on of epigentic information[1]. Are prions thought to play a significant role in the evolution of organisms?
Alberti S, Halfmann R, King O, Kapila A, Lindquist S. 2009. A systematic…
Poshpaws
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Is there a genomic code for nucleosome positioning?
What does a genomic code for nucleosome positioning in eukaryotes actually mean? By the code is it right to think that specific DNA sequences favour nucleosomes and others don't? I see that there for and against arguments on this topic. What is the…
dexterdev
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How does "inheritance of methylation" of DNA and/or histones work?
What are the current models/ideas describing the mechanisms explaining inheritance of methylation on DNA resp. histone level?
Is there evidance of this "setup" information being really duplicated/inherited during a cell division process?
Pointers?…
pointernil
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Spermatogenesis in humans - timing of phases and chromatin modifications
I'm interested in the timing of events during human spermatogenesis, ideally with some references I can build off of. Specifically, I am trying to pin down the number of days for:
Spermatogenesis, beginning to end (I have come across 65, 75, and…
Calen
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