Epigenetic inheritance systems enable the environmentally induced phenotypes to be transmitted between generations. Jablonka and Lamb (1991, 1995) proposed that these systems have a substantial role during speciation. They argued that divergence of isolated populations may be first triggered by the accumulation of (heritable) phenotypic differences that are later followed and strengthened by ge...

Epigenetic modifications are among the most important mechanisms by which environmental factors can influence early cellular differentiation and create new phenotypic traits during pregnancy and within the neonatal period without altering the deoxyribonucleic acid sequence. A number of antenatal and postnatal factors, such as maternal and neonatal nutrition, pollutant exposure, and the composit...

If one accesses the human genome websites, either the publicly or privately funded, and examines the information, one will find only the four letters A, G, T, and C in various combinations. However, one will not find a fifth letter we know to exist, namely C for 5-methylcytosine. For cancer research, this is a significant issue as alterations in DNA methylation in human cancer were first discov...

microglia is the effector cell of the innate immune system in central nervous system (cns). these cells mediate inflammatory responses in injuries. besides external factors, microglial function is also controlled by internal factors, including epigenetic regulations. mechanisms of epigenetic regulation mainly consist of dna methylation, histone modifications and use of non-coding rnas. recent s...

Health impacts of particulate matter (PM) have become a global concern. PM tends to affect patients with allergic diseases, such as rhinitis (AR), more severely. Many epidemiological studies shown that increases outpatient clinic visits well the prevalence and severity AR, while decreasing quality life AR patients. However, exact mechanisms underlying effects on development exacerbation are sti...

objective: a recent field of research in epigenetics is dna methylation which involves the cpg island in the genome that subsequently controls transcription and translation of targeted genes. in the hepatitis b virus (hbv) genome, there are three cpg islands which tend to be methylated. the aim of the current study is to determine the methylation pattern of the hbv x gene in chronically infecte...

Changes in chromatin architecture induced by epigenetic mechanisms are essential for normal cellular processes such as gene expression, DNA repair, and cellular division. Compact chromatin presents a barrier to these processes and is highly regulated by epigenetic markers binding to components of the nucleosome. Histone modifications directly influence chromatin dynamics and facilitate recruitm...

 Many efficient interior-point methods (IPMs) are based on the use of a self-concordant barrier function for the domain of the problem that has to be solved. Recently, a wide class of new barrier functions has been introduced in which the functions are not self-concordant, but despite this fact give rise to efficient IPMs. Here, we introduce the notion of locally self-concordant barrier functio...

Methylation of DNA is an essential epigenetic control mechanism in mammals. During embryonic development, cells are directed toward their future lineages, and DNA methylation poses a fundamental epigenetic barrier that guides and restricts differentiation and prevents regression into an undifferentiated state. DNA methylation also plays an important role in sex chromosome dosage compensation, t...