Research Unit of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Medical Research Center, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 5000, FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland.
Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Metabolic Diseases, Poznań University of Medical Sciences, Szpitalna 27/33, 60-572 Poznan, Poland.
Genes (Basel). 2022 Jan 20;13(2):178. doi: 10.3390/genes13020178.
Epigenetic changes have been identified as a major driver of fundamental metabolic pathways. More specifically, the importance of epigenetic regulatory mechanisms for biological processes like speciation and embryogenesis has been well documented and revealed the direct link between epigenetic modifications and various diseases. In this review, we focus on epigenetic changes in animals with special attention on human DNA methylation utilizing ancient and modern genomes. Acknowledging the latest developments in ancient DNA research, we further discuss paleoepigenomic approaches as the only means to infer epigenetic changes in the past. Investigating genome-wide methylation patterns of ancient humans may ultimately yield in a more comprehensive understanding of how our ancestors have adapted to the changing environment, and modified their lifestyles accordingly. We discuss the difficulties of working with ancient DNA in particular utilizing paleoepigenomic approaches, and assess new paleoepigenomic data, which might be helpful in future studies.
表观遗传变化已被确定为基本代谢途径的主要驱动因素。更具体地说，表观遗传调控机制对于物种形成和胚胎发生等生物学过程的重要性已经得到了充分的证明，并揭示了表观遗传修饰与各种疾病之间的直接联系。在这篇综述中，我们专注于动物的表观遗传变化，特别关注利用古代和现代基因组的人类 DNA 甲基化。承认古 DNA 研究的最新进展，我们进一步讨论了古表观基因组学方法是推断过去表观遗传变化的唯一手段。研究古代人类的全基因组甲基化模式最终可能会更全面地了解我们的祖先如何适应不断变化的环境，并相应地改变他们的生活方式。我们讨论了利用古表观基因组学方法研究古代 DNA 的困难，并评估了可能有助于未来研究的新的古表观基因组学数据。
