Epigenetics

From biologist Daniel Currier at Salvo 35: Exponential Life Epigenetics Deepens the Mystery of Design While DNA “sentences” are certainly essential for life, they are not sufficient to build an organism. So biologists today are asking whether the cell contains other vital receptacles of information. For illustration, let’s picture an orchestra assembled to play a large-scale symphonic work. The piece is scored for many different instruments, some of which will be played continuously throughout the piece, while others will produce music only intermittently or for only a few measures. A successful performance of the piece, however, will depend upon all the instruments being played correctly and at the proper times. So it is with the cell, the foundational unit of Read More ›

A new study is out here. They were studying epigenetic effects in planaria flatworms. Same planaria, three different “species”-level “heads” were regenerated. Of course, everything must have an “evoltuion-did-it” explanation; so, for the record, here it is: The ease with which a particular shape could be coaxed from a G. dorotocephala worm was proportional to the proximity of the target worm on the evolutionary timeline. The closer the two species were related, the easier it was to effect the change. This observation strengthens the connection to evolutionary history, suggesting that modulation of physiological circuits may be one more tool exploited by evolution to alter animal body plans. However, there is more to mull over: Working with Girardia dorotocephala – free-living Read More ›

From The Scientist : Stressed male mice can pass on an abnormal stress response to their offspring via microRNAs found in sperm, a study shows. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania led by Tracy Bale have now demonstrated that an increase in a group of microRNAs (miRNAs) in sperm from stressed mice can lead to altered stress response in adult offspring. The work, published today (October 19) in PNAS, shows that simultaneously injecting nine miRNAs into mouse zygotes recapitulates the changes found in the offspring of stressed mice. “I think it’s a fine paper [and a] well-designed study,” said Michael Skinner, who studies epigenetic inheritance at Washington State University and was not involved in the study. “It shows a very Read More ›

Note: This is a guest post by Virgil Cain. I have left it as is, with just a couple of typographical corrections. See my brief comments and caveats at the end. —– By Virgil Cain In 1997, “Not By Chance” by Lee Spetner was published. In it he argued for a “non-random evolutionary hypothesis” which had a mechanism of “built-in responses to environmental cues” at its heart. Some mutations happened just when they were needed. And some happened at just the right place to be effective. And even others, called transposons aka jumping genes, carried within its DNA coding sequence the coding for two of the enzymes required for it to be able to move around. A transposon has in Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Environmental memories transmitted from a father to his grandchildren … in recent years, scientists have shown that, before his offspring are even conceived, a father’s life experiences involving food, drugs, exposure to toxic products and even stress can affect the development and health not only of his children, but even of his grandchildren. This group, whose paper was just published in Science, has been studying the role of histones (proteins) in the process. So, to test their theory about the possible role of histones in guiding embryo development the researchers created mice in which they slightly altered the biochemical information on the histones during sperm cell formation and then measured the results. (It’s a bit like putting a Read More ›

From Nature: Epigenetic ‘tags’ linked to homosexuality in men The researchers collected DNA samples in saliva from 37 pairs of identical twins in which only one twin was gay, and 10 pairs in which both were gay. By scanning the twins’ epigenomes, the researchers found five epi-marks that were more common among the gay men than in their genetically identical straight brothers. An algorithm they developed based on the five epi-marks could correctly predict the sexual orientation of men in the study 67% of the time. UCLA computational geneticist Tuck Ngun will present the work on 8 October at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. Vilain is not surprised to find that epigenetics is associated with Read More ›

Unfortunately. Had to happen though. While I (O’Leary for News) was preparing a post on the significance of evolution via epigenetics—changes within parents’ genes in their own lifetime are passed on to offspring— this ScienceBlogs item whistled past the desk and crashed into the Later pile. Well, later is now: For those not familiar with biology, epigenetics is a new branch of genetics that describes cellular and physiologic trait variations that are not caused by changes in DNA sequence. Rather, epigenetics describes traits that are due to changes in the expression of genes; these changes may or may not be heritable. Common epigenetic processes include the methylation of DNA (a chemical modification that attaches methyl groups), a method of silencing Read More ›

At Evolution News & Views: Epigenetic change: Lamarck, wake up, you’re wanted in the conference room! To recap, Darwinism entails vertical transfer of genes from a common ancestor to descendants. Horizontal gene transfer means transfer of genes from one organism to another on contact, irrespective of the ancestry of either life form. HGT is a form of evolution, yes. But it drastically weakens the status of Darwinism as the “only known theory.” Any Darwinian claim about evolution must first rule out HGT as a possible explanation. And, as we shall shortly see, it must rule out epigenetics as well. Why does this historic shift in the burden of proof receive comparatively little attention? Probably it’s due to the overwhelming acceptance Read More ›

From The Scientist : After spending more than a decade developing tools to study patterns in gene sequences, bioinformaticians are now working on programs to analyze epigenomics data. Just a decade ago, epigenetics researchers used classic biochemistry to reveal key modifications involved in the control of gene expression. These days, discoveries in epigenetics are as likely to be made with a computer as they are to rely on freezers full of cells or stacks of petri dishes. Researchers working to understand the intricacies of methylation marks, histone patterns, and chromosome structure must use computational approaches. More. Epigenetics is not going away. It’s getting bigger equipment. See also: Experts: “Epigenetics can drive genetics” As opposed to natural selection acting on random Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Washington State University researchers say environmental factors are having an underappreciated effect on the course of disease and evolution by prompting genetic mutations through epigenetics, a process by which genes are turned on and off independent of an organism’s DNA sequence. Their assertion is a dramatic shift in how we might think of disease and evolution’s underlying biology and “changes how we think about where things come from,” said Michael Skinner, founding director of the Center for Reproductive Biology in WSU’s School of Biological Sciences. Why does this remind one of Further to “Philosopher of science: Schoolbook Darwinism needs replacement” (Witzany: All these concepts that dominated science for half a century are falsified now)? This, said Skinner, suggests Read More ›

“There’s more to inheritance and how a body develops than simply DNA. You get your genes from your parents — but how those genes are interpreted is far from straightforward.” Epigenetics See also: Mathematician Peter Saunders on Darwinism and epigenetics Follow UD News at Twitter!

Would it be best to get Darwinism out of the discussion? Mathematician Peter Saunders on Darwinism and epigenetics, Part II, Following on Part I (see especially Mae Wan-Ho): Here: Peter Saunders: The idea is that if you have an organism, say maize, and you want it to be resistant to a certain herbicide — then what you do, consistent with the Modern Synthesis, is you find the “gene” that the herbicide resists in something else and you transfer it to maize. There you are. The only thing is that too depends on the 1960s thinking about the “gene.” What is that piece of DNA actually doing? Remember what they transfer isn’t the “gene.” It’s a piece of DNA, which is Read More ›

But Darwinism, the ultimate in scienceyness, gets a pass? Legal enforcement? From The Guardian: Lots of real scientific terms – such as “neuro” or “nano” – get borrowed for a spot of buzzword scienceyness. Epigenetics is a real and important part of biology, but due to predictable quackery, it is threatening to become the new quantum. All of your cells contain all of your 22,000 genes, but not all of them need to be active all the time. They need to be turned on or off, in the right tissue, at the right moment, and so we have incredible networks of control systems in our genomes – circuits, programmes, hierarchies. Epigenetics literally means “in addition to genetics” and is one Read More ›

Huffington Post interview with Suzan Mazur, author of The Origin of Life Circus: One of Peter Saunders’ principal research interests is explaining the properties of complex nonlinear systems, and he’s long been a critic of the Modern Synthesis. But Saunders, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at King’s College London, thinks that at least some of the current angst in the neo-Darwinist camp in response to challenges regarding its theory of evolution simply has to do with confusion over the term “epigenetics.” A paper on epigenetics that Saunders and his wife, geneticist Mae-Wan Ho co-authored decades ago was cited earlier this year by Denis Noble as inspiring, in part, his JEB paper about replacing the Modern Synthesis. I reached Peter Saunders recently Read More ›

Over at Evolution News & Views, we are told that two Israeli researchers are “ flirting with Lamarck”: Lamarck? He was the much-ridiculed Frenchman (1744–1829) who was right about the inheritance of acquired characteristics. In other words, stuff that happened to our grandparents and parents could help shape our genome, and affect our health and sense of well-being. See, for example, Can epigenetics even shape attitudes? Here’s the abstract: “Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg?” We suggest this question is not a paradox. The Modern Synthesis envisions speciation through genetic changes in germ cells via random mutations, an “Egg first” scenario, but perhaps epigenetic inheritance mechanisms can transmit adaptive changes initiated in the soma (“Chicken first”). Open access Read More ›