Epigenome

The following is taken from a private post to a fellow breeder and I’m using it as an intro for a post I’ve had sitting, unpublished.

The RD test… Genetics… It’s all fascinating and the more I learn, the less I know! Have you heard of the epigenome? Nova featured a piece on identical twins and how useful they are to researchers. Same DNA, but often one will manifest a disease and the other doesn’t. Why was the subject of the piece. There were also mice that were littermates; clones actually. I think some were knock-out mice. That’s when researchers actually remove gene/s.. Anyway, it was amazing. The epigenome spirals around the DNA and regulates it with tags, telling the DNA to be a heart cell, etc. or to turn off or on and other things I probably didn’t catch. The epigenome is directly affected by nutrition, environmental factors (and surely hormones, etc. that continually flow through our bodies). And the epigenome is hereditary, including the changes! Wow! Consider that!

Defintion of epigenome

Whew! Your DNA Isn’t Your Destiny