![]() ![]() ![]() Her clear explanations and the many drawings included immediately answered some burning questions I had after reading Lamarck’s Revenge. Carey introduces the various molecular mechanisms, including DNA methylation: the addition of a methyl group, or –CH 3 if you remember your chemistry classes, to DNA and histone modification: changes to the structural protein around which DNA coils to form a larger superstructure. After all, if every cell in a human (or animal) body contains all the DNA, all the genetic instructions to make a complete version of itself, then why doesn’t it? How do cells actually become so specialised to be skin cells, liver cells, or muscle cells? Do they just jettison all the genes they don’t need anymore? Or do they retain them but switch them off? Carey starts off with a history of the first researchers that asked the right kinds of questions that led to the discovery of this field. So, up- or down-regulation of gene activity rather than mutation. Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, a quick definition: epigenetics is the study of changes in an organism caused by changes in gene expression rather than in the genetic code itself. “ The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance“, written by Nessa Carey, published in Europe by Icon Books in March 2012 (paperback, 339 pages) ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |