Center for Reproductive Biology, School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA.
Epigenetics. 2011 Jul;6(7):838-42. doi: 10.4161/epi.6.7.16537. Epub 2011 Jul 1.
The majority of environmental factors can not modify DNA sequence, but can influence the epigenome. The mitotic stability of the epigenome and ability of environmental epigenetics to influence phenotypic variation and disease, suggests environmental epigenetics will have a critical role in disease etiology and biological areas such as evolutionary biology. The current review presents the molecular basis of how environment can promote stable epigenomes and modified phenotypes, and distinguishes the difference between epigenetic transgenerational inheritance through the germ line versus somatic cell mitotic stability.
大多数环境因素不能改变 DNA 序列,但可以影响表观基因组。表观基因组的有丝分裂稳定性和环境表观遗传学影响表型变异和疾病的能力表明,环境表观遗传学将在疾病病因学和进化生物学等生物学领域发挥关键作用。本文综述了环境如何促进稳定的表观基因组和修饰表型的分子基础,并区分了通过生殖细胞和体细胞有丝分裂稳定性进行表观遗传跨代遗传的差异。