Epigenetics is a term in biology referring to heritable traits that do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism. Epigenetic traits exist on top of or in addition to the traditional molecular basis for inheritance. The "epigenome" is a parallel to the word "genome," and refers to the overall epigenetic state of a cell. Cancer and stem cell research have gradually focused attention on these genome modifications. The molecular basis of epigenetics involves modifications to DNA and the chromatin proteins that associate with it. Methylation, for example, can silence a nearby gene and seems to be involved in some cancers.
Epigenetics is beginning to form and take shape as a new scientific discipline, which will have a major impact on Medicine and essentially all fields of biology. Increasingly, researchers are unearthing links between epigenetics and a number of diseases.
Although in recent years cancer has been the main focus of epigenetics, recent data suggests that epigenetic plays a critical role in psychology and psychopathology. It is being realized that normal behaviors such as maternal care and pathologies such as Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's might have an epigenetic basis. It is also becoming clear that nutrition and life experiences have epigenetic consequences.
TOC:
Histone Modifications (Blerta Xhemalce, Mark A. Dawson, Andrew J. Bannister)
Chromatin Dynamics and Higher Order Chromatin Organization (Anette Zeilner, Paolo Piatti, Alexandra Lusser)
Heterochromatin and Euchromatin-Organization, Boundaries, and Gene Regulation (Annelie Stralfors, Karl Ekwall)
Regulation of Gene Expression (Anil Kumar, Sarika Garg, Neha Garg)
Regulation of Gene Expression at the Beginning of Mammalian Development (Matthew J. Kohn, Kotaro J. Kaneko, Melvin L. DePamphilis)
Monozygotic Twins and Epigenetics (Jean-Sebastien Doucet, Albert H. C. Wong)
Chromosome Territory Organization within the Nucleus (Thomas Cremer, Yolanda Markaki, Barbara Hübner, Andreas Zunhammer, Hilmar Strickfaden, Sven Beichmanis, Martin Heß, Lothar Schermelleh, Marion Cremer, Christoph Cremer)
The Cell Nucleus: Biogenesis, Structure, and Function (Dean A. Jackson)
Molecular Genetics of Genomic Imprinting (Ryutaro Hirasawa, Satya K. Kota, Robert Feil)
Imprinting and the Epigenetic Asymmetry between Parental Genomes (Thomas Haaf)
The Human Epigenome (Romulo Martin Brena)
Parental Genomic Imprinting in Flowering Plants (Frederic Berger)
Prions as Epigenetic Regulators of Phenotype in Fungi (Wesley R. Naeimi, Mick F Tuite)
Methylomes (Pao-Yang Chen, Matteo Pellegrini)
RNA Methodologies (Robert E. Farrell)
DNA Methylation Analysis by MALDI Mass Spectrometry (Jörg Tost, Ivo G. Gut)
All Things ChIP: ChIP-chip, ChIP-Seq, ChIP-PCR (Jason Rizzoand, Michael J. Buck)
Computational Epigenetics (Joo Chuan Tong, Shen Jean Lim)
Epigenetic Medicine (Randy Jirtle, Autumn Bernal, David Skaar)
Epigenetic Regulation in Pluripotent Stem Cells (Lin Liu, Lingyi Chen)
Epigenetics of the Immune System (Rena Levin-Klein, Yehudit Bergman)
Pharmaco-epigenomics to Improve Cancer Therapies (Bart Claes, Bernard Siebens, Diether Lambrechts)
Epigenetics of Ciliates (Jason A. Motl, Annie, W. Shieh, Douglas L. Chalker)
Nuclear Transfer for Cloning Animals (Andras Dinnyes, Xiuchun Cindy Tian, and Björn Oback)