Summary of a New Kind of Inheritance

Summary of A New Kind of Inheritance

        This paper is about “Now, it appears, some of these “epigenetic” changes are passed down to—and may cause disease in—future generations” (46) wrote by Michael K. Skinner.

        DNA is not destiny, and it “specifically into protein-coding genes-the sequences of DNA code that dictate the shapes and faction of proteins, the workhorses of the cell.” (46) Biologists noticed that lots of places in mammals an DNA have a methyl (CH3) radical attached to them. “Scientists first thought that the main function of DNA methylation was to shut down transposons dangerous stretches of DNA that can move themselves from their original positions on the chromosomes to other parts of the genome, sometimes in ways that cause disease.”(46) They get the way hoe tightly the DNA loops around and get hidden from proteins that switch on gene activity.

        DNA revise the patterns of epigenetic marks during an organism’s development and aging. Any change in the DNA will be showing in those marks. But even today there still a lot of
“biologists debate whether epimutations—abnormal epigenetic changes—can be passed down through many generations in mammals”

        By Mistake , his helper mated unrelated male and female pups from the experiment. Than he get his first GLIMPSE. They are“more than 90 percent of the males in these litters showed the same testicular abnormalities as their fathers, even though their parents were just pinhead-sized fetuses when they and their grandmothers were briefly exposed.”(47) This shock them, because many toxicology studies had looked for evidence that environmental chemical.

        They bred a fourth generation and then a fifth, to find out whether direct influence was to blam. Even the great-grandchildren matured. “the males of each generation suffered problems similar to those of their ancestors.” (47) They concluded, “the exposure causes an epimutation that interferes with gonad development in male embryos—and this epimutation passes from sperm to the cells of a developing embryo, including to primordial germ cells, and so on for generations” (47)“Capitalizing on another natural experiment, Marcus Pembrey of University College London, Lars Olov Bygren of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and their colleagues have done an intriguing series of studies using data from about 300 people born in 1890, 1905 and 1920 in Överkalix, Sweden, as well as their parents and grandparents. ” It appears that women whose paternal grandmothers experienced one of these feast-famine swings as young children had markedly higher rates of fatal cardiovascular disease.