Lomberk Gwen
Gastroenterology Research Unit, Saint Mary's Hospital, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN 55905, USA.
Pancreatology. 2007;7(5-6):396-7. doi: 10.1159/000108954. Epub 2007 Sep 25.
'Epigenetics', the term that is used for the study of heritable changes in gene function that occur without a change in the DNA sequence, has become a significant area of research. As a consequence of this emerging field, our concepts founded upon genetics alone have been blurred and the way researchers think about heredity has changed. Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation, histone modifications ('histone code'), chromatin modifiers, RNA interference as well as their effects in gene activation and inactivation are increasingly understood to be more than 'sideline players' in phenotype transmission and development, which consequently impacts significantly on our study of disease states such as cancer.
“表观遗传学”是用于研究基因功能可遗传变化的术语，这些变化发生时DNA序列并未改变，它已成为一个重要的研究领域。作为这个新兴领域的一个结果，我们仅基于遗传学建立的概念已经变得模糊，研究人员思考遗传的方式也发生了改变。诸如DNA甲基化、组蛋白修饰（“组蛋白密码”）、染色质修饰因子、RNA干扰等表观遗传机制，以及它们在基因激活和失活中的作用，越来越被认为在表型传递和发育中不仅仅是“次要角色”，因此对我们对癌症等疾病状态的研究产生了重大影响。
