Forever in epigenes

Thin and fat from the start

JONATHAN HODGKIN

Thin and fat from the start

Published: 4 May 2012
Nessa Carey THE EPIGENETICS REVOLUTION How modern biology is rewriting our understanding of genetics, disease and inheritance 339pp. Icon. Paperback, £9.99.
978 1 84831 292 0 Life is complicated. Even when great unifying insights arrive in biology, subsequent research always reveals exceptions and qualifications. This book, intended for the general reader, argues that the simplistic view of genes as constant and immutable dictators of function is being supplanted by a more nuanced version, in which gene activity can be modified by environment, history and experience. Epigenetics is the baggy term used to refer to both the experiential effects and their underlying molecular mechanisms. Nessa Carey, in The Epigenetics Revolution, provides a clear and very readable survey of current research in epigenetics, which includes work on human obesity, schizophrenia, cloning and stem cells. Even so, epigenetics doesn't really amount to a revolution. The simple version of genetics proposes that the function of a gene is determined by the base sequence of its DNA. But a gene may also be subjected to modifications in its chemistry, or in its chromosomal environment, which don't change this coding DNA sequence but do affect how efficiently it works. These epigenetic modifications come in two main flavours. First, the DNA itself may be modified by a process called methylation...

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