Epigenetics
Jul. 11th, 2014 07:29 pmLiv posts a brief summary of what people should know about epigenetics on dreamwidth at: Hypertext in the book of life
The most important implications, which I didn't realise had become standard knowledge while I wasn't paying attention until Liv told me about it, are:
1. DNA has annotations on to say which bits are active. And some of these are fairly permanent, like to say "this cell is a liver cell, turn on all the liver cell genes and turn off all the heart cell genes" or "living in hostile environment, activate all survivalist genes". And some of these are passed on through gametes to offspring and make a measurable difference to the next generation. Biologists knew this could happen in theory, but it sounded suspiciously Lamarkian, so it took a while before people realised that it was prevalent, and important!
2. Stem cells are cells which haven't differentiated into specialised sorts yet, as in a foetus. If you want to grow tissue in a lab, you need to grow it from stem cells to get the right sort of cells. And you used to have to get stem cells from a foetus :( But now we can make stem cells out of mature cells. We can't grow a whole organ yet, but it's starting to useful for some sorts of tissue!
See, I can be concise sometimes! :)
The most important implications, which I didn't realise had become standard knowledge while I wasn't paying attention until Liv told me about it, are:
1. DNA has annotations on to say which bits are active. And some of these are fairly permanent, like to say "this cell is a liver cell, turn on all the liver cell genes and turn off all the heart cell genes" or "living in hostile environment, activate all survivalist genes". And some of these are passed on through gametes to offspring and make a measurable difference to the next generation. Biologists knew this could happen in theory, but it sounded suspiciously Lamarkian, so it took a while before people realised that it was prevalent, and important!
2. Stem cells are cells which haven't differentiated into specialised sorts yet, as in a foetus. If you want to grow tissue in a lab, you need to grow it from stem cells to get the right sort of cells. And you used to have to get stem cells from a foetus :( But now we can make stem cells out of mature cells. We can't grow a whole organ yet, but it's starting to useful for some sorts of tissue!
See, I can be concise sometimes! :)