Review article
Epigenetics of twins
Ninno Sinčić
orcid.org/0000-0003-2584-6654
; School of Medicine University of Zagreb
Abstract
Epigenetics as a cellular phenomenon represents a variety of cellular processes that regulate chromatin structure and gene expression without changing DNA sequence in a genome. Central epigenetic mechanisms are DNA methylation, posttranslational histone modifications and RNA interference. Epigenetic modifications interact with each other and create a unique epigenome extending throughout the cell, from DNA itself in the nucleus to the cell membrane, and in the context of a multicellular organism throughout a whole organism per se. Epigenetics functionally represents a complex molecular bridge that connects genotype and phenotype. Namely, a genome is a rigid structure of encoded inherited traits that determines all possibilities and limitations of a single cell phenotype capabilities, and therefore phenotype of an individual as well. However, in the phenotype, at a given point at a particular site, only certain characteristics encoded in the genome are expressed, and most preferably those that represent the best possible response of a cell and thus of the organism to the requirements of the cellular environment or the environment of the organism in toto. Epigenetic mechanisms are dependent on environmental stimuli and strongly affect phenotype properties. In this review, apart from introducing epigenetics, a number of concepts and evidence of interaction between the environment and genotype bridged by epigenetics are mentioned, with highlight on the influence of epigenetics on shaping the phenotypes, especially in monozygotic twins.
Keywords
epigenetics, genotype, phenotype, environment, twins
Hrčak ID:
251514
URI
Publication date:
1.1.2017.
Visits: 686 *