Among the persistent mysteries in epigenetics are the criteria by which specific regions of the genome are chosen for deposition of distinguishing chromatin marks. Once a particular region is modified, will the newly acquired epigenetic state spill onto neighboring regions of the genome or be confined to tidy patches? The report by Henderson and Jacobsen in the the previous issue of Genes & Dev...

Social events that cause stress can epigenetic changes on living things. The study of the effects social experienced by an individual marks genome has created field epigenetics. epigenetics examines psychosocial factors such as poverty, war trauma and childhood abuse mechanisms. Epigenetic mechanisms alter chemical markers in structure without changing DNA sequence. Among these mechanisms, meth...

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Epigenetic studies of both intragenerational and transgenerational epigenetic phenotypic modifications have proliferated in the last few decades. However, the strong reductionist focus on mechanism that prevails in many epigenetic studies to date has diverted attention away what might be called the 'dynamics' of epigenetics and its role in comparative biology. Epigenetic dynamics describes how ...