Not all in the genes: Are we inheriting more than we think?

[Kamaji]

Not all in the genes:  Are we inheriting more than we think?

Date:  August 11, 2022
Source:  Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
Summary:  A fundamental discovery about a driver of healthy development in embryos could rewrite our understanding of what can be inherited from our parents and how their life experiences may shape us.

A fundamental discovery about a driver of healthy development in embryos could rewrite our understanding of what can be inherited from our parents and how their life experiences may shape us.

The new research suggests that epigenetic information, which sits on top of DNA and is normally reset between generations, is more frequently carried from mother to offspring than previously thought.

The study, led by researchers from WEHI (Melbourne, Australia), significantly broadens our understanding of which genes have epigenetic information passed from mother to child and which proteins are important for controlling this unusual process.

Epigenetics is a rapidly growing field of science that investigates how our genes are switched on and off to allow one set of genetic instructions to create hundreds of different cell types in our body.

Epigenetic changes can be influenced by environmental variations such as our diet, but these changes do not alter DNA and are normally not passed from parent to offspring.

While a tiny group of 'imprinted' genes can carry epigenetic information across generations, until now, very few other genes have been shown to be influenced by the mother's epigenetic state.

The new research reveals that the supply of a specific protein in the mother's egg can affect the genes that drive skeletal patterning of offspring.

Chief investigator Professor Marnie Blewitt said the findings initially left the team surprised.

"It took us a while to process because our discovery was unexpected," Professor Blewitt, Joint Head of the Epigenetics and Development Division at WEHI, said.

"Knowing that epigenetic information from the mother can have effects with life-long consequences for body patterning is exciting, as it suggests this is happening far more than we ever thought.

"It could open a Pandora's box as to what other epigenetic information is being inherited."

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Source:  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220811142958.htm

[Fishrrman]

I sense that as the science of genetics is concerned, with the passage of time and the increase of knowledge (assuming that knowledge is accumulated in a "non-politically correct" environment), we are going to find that more and more of "who were are" is due to genes and heritability.

But that knowledge -- and the wisdom that comes from understanding it -- will come with damning implications for the "nurture" crowd. Which is why they struggle so vehemently to suppress it.

[mountaineer]

I'm pretty sure I inherited my mother's lousy skeleton. For the last 10 years of her life, she experienced horrible osteoarthritis pain, and I'm getting there - at a younger age.

[Smokin Joe]

Oddly enough, quite by accident Mrs Joe an I discovered something likely inherited.

A friend had started selling air purifiers, ones which put a little ozone into the air as an air freshener. He wanted us to give one a try, so we did.

Over the next couple of days, we got progressively more on edge, restless, even bitchy...
Not really figuring anything different other than the machine, we shut it off.
After we aired the house out all returned to normal.

Her people spent generations on the plains, mine, generations out on the water. That little whiff of ozone on the air ahead of a bad storm is a survival mechanism for folks in either situation--the one to find shelter before the storm hits, for my folks, to get to safe harbor.
It's an alarm bell that things are about to get real.

We packed the machine back up, and thanked him, but it wasn't for us.

[roamer_1]

Oddly enough, quite by accident Mrs Joe an I discovered something likely inherited.

[...]

Her people spent generations on the plains, mine, generations out on the water. That little whiff of ozone on the air ahead of a bad storm is a survival mechanism for folks in either situation--the one to find shelter before the storm hits, for my folks, to get to safe harbor.
It's an alarm bell that things are about to get real.

That's an interesting observation!

I have long been of the belief that northern folks have a genetic need for vinegar... Before canning, food was fermented for storage for many centuries. I think that dietary norm, removed by modern canning, is a requirement much like fish is a requirement for huskies and malamutes - They can live without it, but wow, what a difference when they get it.

It also explains the tolerance or even favoritism for kraut and pickles and such in northern European tribes.