Story in Science Daily and Science Alert, among others. Hat tip to James Clement to posting this on FB.
“A major breakthrough study, published 15 October in Nature, has provided a complete roadmap of the human epigenome and has major implications for the treatment of human diseases and development of stem-cell based regenerative medicine.
An epigenome may be thought of as the clothes that dress a genome, controlling the way genes are packaged and expressed without actually altering the underlying DNA code.
Epigenome are flexible and can be changed by environmental factors such as diet, stress and chemical exposure, leading to changes in gene expression. These changes can be temporary or they can be more permanent, with some studies suggesting they can be passed down from generation to generation.
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