It is now well - established that DNA sequence is complemented
by epigenetic information including DNA methylation and histone modifications to program gene expression [24].
Not exact matches
To find out if that was the case, he teamed up with John Goutsias, Ph.D., professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, to find a way to measure this controlled type of randomness, scientifically termed
epigenetic stochasticity,
by using the
information - theoretic concept of Shannon entropy.
«Just as normal cells with the same genome differentiate into many different cell types, a single tumor characterized
by specific genetic mutations can contain many different types of cells — stem - like and more differentiated cells — with the difference being rooted in their
epigenetic information.
Epigenetic changes do not alter the
information encoded in the DNA sequence itself but determine whether and to what extent specific genes are used
by cells.
With these results the study
by the Max Planck researchers is an important step forward and shows clearly the biological consequences of inherited
epigenetic information.
EPIGENETICS AND ANTIBIOTICS «Hidden Switches in the Mind,»
by Eric J. Nestler, discusses
epigenetic changes — alterations to how genes behave that do not affect the
information they contain.
«This suggests that using
epigenetics as a biomarker could give you a lot of
information about environmental exposures within particular populations that's not captured
by genetics,» Zaitlen said.
Through this packaging mechanism, researchers think that histone proteins are the key to regulating access to the genetic
information by making different parts of the DNA accessible to factors that express the gene, so - called
epigenetic regulation.
Epigenetics provides another way of understanding how genes and environment interact in that there is increasing evidence that gene expression is moderated
by the environment in which the organism grows and develops.15 Genetic
information is encoded not just in DNA linear sequences but in
epigenetic changes in chromatin structure such as DNA methylation or covalent modifications of the DNA - binding proteins.