Imagine you could inherit your father's six pack, or your mothers stress still affects you
through your genes. Great wouldn't it be? Or not?? Even though this goes against the idea that inheritance only happens through the DNA, with epigenetic inheritance parental
experiences can be passed down to their future generations. So how does this work??
Let's start at the beginning. Complex organisms of any sort such as animals and humans develop from reproductive cells, specifically eggs and sperms. Those, however; originate from specialised cells with stable gene expression profiles. Those profiles are actually just genetic information or capability marked with epigenetic tags. Btw genetic information is just the genes a cell constitutes of. To understand, imagine this, you have a red highlighter and a yellow highlighter. Now, if we have a muscle cell, the muscle gene obviously should be turned on, thus highlighted in red highlighter. However, in a brain cell the muscle gene, which can still exist, should be off, and is thus highlighted yellow. This applies to all genes and cells. These are epigenetic tags.
So if those two reproductive cells meet (eggs and sperms), in hopes of growing and dividing to form every type of cell in an adult organism, essentially creating a new life, the epigenetic tags have to be erased. This is important for the new organism to grow into a healthy embryo. This process is called reprogramming, turning the cells into genetic” blank slates”. Yet during this process, certain epigenetic tags survive, avoiding the reprogramming, passing unchanged from the parent to the embryo a.k.a child.
So how exactly does this relate to the introduction, or how does this affect us? Well, lifestyles of parents influence their bodies directly, their cells which exactly are made up of those epigenetic tags. That means those epigenetic tags are altered based on your parents behaviour especially during pregnancy and the environmental conditions. If those epigenetic tags of certain traits, such as stress or exercise, avoid the reprogramming process, they will reoccur in the child. A very common influence, besides exercise and stress, is diet. Scientist
discovered that a nutritious diet consumed by a pregnant woman,during the development of the baby, these epigenetic tags affected by it and inherited will prepare the baby for a life of living with very little food. This can result in increased risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, if the child later on in life returns to a normal nutritious diet.
Don't worry, saviour is near. This counts vice versa, so if your parent is extremely fit, such traits may be passed onto you. There are other ways to avoid such consequences. Epigenetic tags change more rapidly than DNA, meaning an epigenetic change that was a result of environmental conditions may be reversed when environmental conditions change again. This means there are opportunities to prevent implications. Additionally, even if you inherit this amazing epigenetic tag, benefiting your exercise, some might not be turned on, meaning they are not highlighted in red, and technically inactive. This is for your body to decide and beyond your control, even if your parents focus on a healthy lifestyle. So be safe and healthy independently.
Bibliography:
https://www.flaticon.com/free-
icon/happy_10184706?term=family&page=1&position=14&origin=search&related_id=1018
4706
https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/inheritance
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/how-your-diet-could-affect-the-generations-to-
come-1.3118344
https://www.bestcolleges.com/biological-sciences/10-most-interesting-biology-research-
topics/
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2014/crispr-a-game-changing-genetic-engineering-
technique/
Comments