an autodidact meets a dilettante…

I’ve now listened to a talk given by Nessa Carey (author of The epigenetic revolution) at the Royal Institution, but I don’t think she even mentioned imprinting, so I may not mention it again in this post, but I’ll get back to it. 

The talk was of course easier to follow than the book, and it didn’t really teach me anything new, but it did hammer home some points that I should’ve mentioned at the outset, and that is that it’s obvious that genetics isn’t the whole story of our inheritance and development because it doesn’t begin to explain how, from one fertilised egg – the union of, or pairing of, two sets of chromosomes – we get, via divisions upon divisions upon divisions, a complex being with brain cells, blood cells, skin cells, liver cells and so forth, all with identical DNA. It also doesn’t explain how a maggot becomes a fly with the same set of genes (or a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, to be a little more uplifting). These transformations, which maintain genetic inheritance while involving massive change, must be instigated and shaped by something over and above genetics but intimately related to it – hence epigenetics. Other examples include whether a crocodile hatchling will turn out male or female – determined epigenetically via the temperature during development, rather than genetically via the Y chromosome in mammals.   

So, to add to the description I gave last time, the histone proteins that the DNA wraps itself round come in batches or clusters of eight. The DNA wraps around one cluster, then another, and so on with millions of these histone clusters (which have much-studied ‘tails’ sticking out of them). And I should also remind myself that our DNA comes in a four-letter code strung together, out of which is constructed 3 billion or so letters.

The detailed description here is important (I hope). One gene will be wrapped around multiple histone clusters. Carey, in her talk, gave the example of a gene that breaks down alcohol faster in response to consumption over time. As Carey says, ‘[the body] has switched on higher expression of the gene that breaks down alcohol’. The response to this higher alcohol consumption is that signals are generated in the liver which induce modifications in the histone tails, which drive up gene expression. If you then reduce your alcohol consumption over time, further modifications will inhibit gene expression. And it won’t necessarily be a matter of off or on, but more like less or more, and the modifications may relate to perhaps an endless variety of other stimuli, so that it can get very complicated. We’re talking about modifications to proteins but there can also be modifications to DNA itself. These modifications are more permanent, generally. This is what creates specialised cells – it’s what prevents brain cells from creating haemoglobin, etc. Those genes are ‘tightened up’ or compacted in neurons by the modifying agents, so that, for example, they’re permanently unable to express the haemoglobin-creating function.

All of this is extremely fascinating and complex, of course, but the most fascinating – the most controversial and headline-creating stuff – has to do with carrying epigenetic changes to the next generation. The inheritance of acquired characteristics, no less. Next time.

References

What is epigenetics? with Nessa Carey – The Royal Institution (video)

The Epigenetics Revolution, by Nessa Carey, 2011