Epigenetics and the environment: emerging patterns and implications

By R. Feil, M. Fraga. Nature reviews genetics, 2012

1,813 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Epigenetic phenomena in animals and plants are mediated by DNA methylation and stable chromatin modifications. There has been considerable interest in whether environmental factors modulate the establishment and maintenance of epigenetic modifications, and could thereby influence gene expression and phenotype. Chemical pollutants, dietary components, temperature changes and other external stresses can indeed have long-lasting effects on development, metabolism and health, sometimes even in subsequent generations. Although the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown, particularly in humans, mechanistic insights are emerging from experimental model systems. These have implications for structuring future research and understanding disease and development.

Subfields: Education, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/105bf0feda4c2bfde65d4ed6663046f2b6230f97

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Citations in the corpus

Metabolic regulation of epigenetics (2012, background): “Dietary intake of methyl donors such as folate is closely linked to levels of DNA methylation, 12 Cell Metabolism 16, July 3, 2012 ª2012 Elsevier Inc. which has been excellently reviewed elsewhere (Feil and Fraga, 2011; Kim, 2005).”
EDC-2: The Endocrine Society's Second Scientific Statement on Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals. (2015, background): “The mechanism of the phenotypic changes in F1 and F2 generations described in the above paragraphs likely involves epigenetic modifications—specifically, mitotically and/or meiotically heritable changes in gene function without changes in DNA sequence (98, 261).”
Animals in a bacterial world, a new imperative for the life sciences (2013, background): “Recent studies have revealed that bacterial pathogens (29) and other environmental factors (30) can alter the activities of epigenetic machinery.”
DNA methylation aging clocks: challenges and recommendations (2019, background): “Hypotheses proposed for the mechanism involved in DNA methylation loss within these loci include inadequate DNA methylation maintenance influenced by a lack of dietary substrates, such as those for S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) [81], or TET-mediated active DNA demethylation [161].”
Linking epigenetics and biological conservation: Towards a conservation epigenetics perspective (2019, positive): “Moreover, while some epigenetic patterns (i.e. epigenetic status at a given genomic location) are under genetic determinism (Box 1), some others are directly modulated by the surrounding environmental conditions (Feil & Fraga, 2012).”