Sánchez-Serrano SL, Lamas M

Language: Spanish
References: 21
Page: 105-110
PDF size: 152.07 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Epigenetics (from the greek: epi -over- and genetics) bursts into the XXI^st century biology to answer some of the most relevant unsolved scientific questions of the last decade: why two cells, or even more striking, to individuals that have exactly the same genomic background, the same genome, act, look and behave differently? How does nurture influence nature? Through a totally new perspective, epigenetics re-interprets old concepts and reveals new mechanisms by which DNA-contained information is translated. Concept by concept, a new language is being deciphered and a new idea introduced that our DNA can get «marked» through our previous experience and that these marks can be passed on to future generations. To date, epigenetic events have been linked with a great amount of physiological and pathological processes that include cancer in various types, cardiovascular, neurological, reproductive and immune diseases. This review offers some basic tools to enable the reader to step into the extraordinary universe of epigenetics and to be a participant of its revolution.

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