Epigenetics

From The School of Biomedical Sciences Wiki
Revision as of 14:07, 2 December 2015 by Nnjm2 (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Epigenetics is a theory of Inheritance which suggests that gene expression within an organism can be altered by changes to the genome, without the DNA sequence itself being changed[1]. This is mainly caused by the addition of specific chemical groups on to the genome, which can promote or inhibit the transcription of genes in to polypeptides. The genome alterations are considered to be heritable, therefore the changes in gene expression of an organism may affect their offspring in subsequent generations[2].

References

  1. Hartl DL, Ruvolo M. Genetics analysis of genes and genomes, 8th ed. India: Jones and Bartlett Learning; 2011.
  2. Carey N. The epigenetics revolution. United Kingdom: Icon Books Ltd; 2012.