Epigenetic Cell Memory Essay

The most compelling piece of information that I read from the article "Epigenetics: Its What Turns You On...and Off" (Schardt, 2013) is how children born from the same mother, before gastric bypass surgery and after the surgery, had different patterns of epigenetic marks than their siblings. It would not have crossed my mind that being overweight would actually have an affect on your genes, that could be passed down to your offspring. Researchers have also reported that the gene IGF2 was more turned on in those born to obese fathers, which might increase the risk of becoming overweight in adulthood (Schardt, 2013). So they chances that a child becomes overweight is on both parents and not just one.

Epigenetics, essentially, affects how genes are read by cells, and subsequently how they produce proteins.

Researchers first thought the genes you receive from your parents are set in stone since they are made of a genetic code set in our DNA sequence;however, they are discovering that there is a second layer of structure that combines with DNA to decide whether or not a gene is active or not, called the epigenome. The epigenome consists of the DNA, histones, a protein DNA is wrapped around, and chemical tags. The epigenome alters the genetic code by directing signals. The signals come from the environment, which are reacted upon by epigenetic tags to turn a gene either on or off without affecting the DNA sequence. Certain things from our environment that send signals to epigenetic tags to change our genes in the epigenome includes the following:

A roadmap to our future is predetermined by our genetical makeup. However, can external influences such as environment and lifestyle unlock who we are? The study to understand heritable changes in genetical expression is called Epigenetics. Héctor González-Pardo and Marino Pérez Álvarez(2013) describes Epigenetics as the examination of the heritable complex genetical alterations that are shaped by environmental factors which don’t cause changes to the DNA Sequence. In other words, different cell/organism must use the same script in different ways. The study of epigenetics explores the idea that DNA is a script and not a manual. Accordingly, we can positively influence our lives as well as the lives of our offspring by leading a healthy lifestyle.

The park was open the next day and we decided to go again, since we had so much fun yesterday. The only thing I saw as we drove to park the car was the colorful front entrance. I thought about it and how it can relate to the nuclear membrane for the cell. The nuclear membrane controls what goes in and out of the nucleus, and the front entrance controls who goes in and out of the

As of late there has been more of a focus on the Epigenetics component of mental illness.

The PBS video called “Epigenetics” brought to light some very interesting views. Through rats scientist have been able to see the works of epigenetics and believe that the finding have led to the idea that the change in genetics has the same effect on humans. The most interesting part of the video was that younger pairs of twins have very similar genes, but the older pairs of twin have more epigenetic difference in their genes. This validates the idea that the epigenetic difference in old twins is caused by environmental factors such as lifestyle choices. The idea also alludes to the idea that our parents and grandparents healthy and epigenetics may affect my heath and my children’s health. This leads to the inclination that my child’s health

I took a semester off in the Spring of 2012 and 2013. In 2012, I helped care for my grandfather, who suffered from lung cancer and passed away that April. During my time off, I volunteered in the pediatric department of the hospital where he was staying. The inoperable nature of his cancer spurred me to shadow Dr Cheng, a radiation oncologist. In 2013, my mother was told that she might have breast cancer. With my father working in China, I took time off to be with her. I decided to transfer schools because Columbia dramatically decreased my financial aid for the upcoming year, while Brandeis offered me a full scholarship. With my mother’s health issues, I did not want to further burden her financially. I shadowed Dr Anderson, a pediatric geneticist at UT Genetic Center and validated a plasma cell enrichment procedure for the diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma.

For years, scientists believed DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, was the end-all-be-all: a mould for our cells to be created from. Which does not sound far-fetched since DNA contains all of the information needed for replication, differentiation, growth, and development, in addition to the countless cellular fates, as described in Waddington’s landscape. Instead, DNA is a guide for our cells, and Epigenetics is the tool that coerces them into their final cellular form. The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease, and Inheritance written by Nessa Carey, outlines the process of DNA versus Epigenetics, and the developments they have had within the scientific field. This paper will examine the fundamental distinction constructed by Nessa Carey between DNA as a script versus a template. This analogy of DNA as a script.

Many studies have explored the impact of nature and nurture on stuttering behavior, but for our project we wanted to focus on epigenetics as well as specific genes hypothesized to be related to stuttering. Epigenetics is sometimes referred to as the bridge connecting nature and nurture. Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence. In other words, a change in phenotype without a change in genotype. Epigenetics is suggested to reside in methyl groups, histones, and noncoding RNA. DNA methylation can be compared to turning on a faucet, in which this process turns genes “on” and “off.” Meanwhile, histones control “how much water is flowing through the faucet, by determining how tightly or loosely the DNA is wound and “read.” Finally, non-coding RNA are functional RNA molecules that are transcribed from DNA but not translated into proteins.

Epigenetics is the correlation between our lifestyle choices and our overall wellbeing. Choices that we can control such was what we eat, the amount of exercise, and how we manage our stress will affect whether genes will be expressed or silent. Expressed genes are those that are active while silent genes are inactive. Genes are permanently expressed while epigenes can change with time. These epigenes are effected by lifestyle choices and environmental factors. An example of how an epigene can change over time would be the expression of diabetes. An individual could be predisposed to the condition but is making healthy eating and exercise decisions so that epigene may not expressed. That same person may start making poor decisions later

What is Epigenetics? It is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes to the DNA sequence. Epigenetics is the change in phenotype without a change in genotype, which in turn affects how cells read genes. Its change can be influenced by several factors including age, the environment or lifestyle, and disease state. Epigenetic can also have damaging affects that can result in diseases like cancer. The results show that changes will occur to the function and/or regulation of these molecules, without altering their primary sequences. Epigenetics modifications are stable and passed on to future generations and they are dynamic and change in response to environmental stimuli.

To me epigenetics is the how behind each and every person’s personality. We always look for answers to questions, that are right now to incomprehensible to us but still trying to quantify them, and epigenetics is the latest answer. First we were looking at the gnome to try and answer medical questions of who and why certain people get diseases, now with that not giving us the results we want we are digging deeper into the bodies makeup trying to uncover its secrets.

as well as genes that carry memory from one generation to the other can also be inherited.

What if genes that were already previously expressed could help synthesize or reactivate cell replication faster? The idea behind this question is what people call epigenetic transcriptional memory. Organisms, in order to adapt in their environment, will alter gene expression to be able to survive different temperatures, stress, etc. Organisms can “remember” a previous condition and then adapt to that environmental condition faster in the future. Epigenetic transcriptional memory is the same in which in response to a certain modification or stimulus, it can “remember” this alteration and use it to change other gene expressions faster. This process helps establish and maintain a state that is heritable to progeny (Brickner, 2010). In a eukaryotic