This 2020 UK evolutionary biology article was part of a “Fifty years of the Price equation” issue: “Genetic and non-genetic inheritance usually produce a phenotype [the composite of an organism’s characteristics, including its developmental, biophysical, and behavioral traits] through a highly complex developmental process that also relies on many features of the world over which … Continue reading Humans individually evolve by..?
This 2020 Swiss/German review mainly cited weed, worm, and yeast studies: “RNA interference-related mechanisms can mediate the deposition and transgenerational inheritance of specific chromatin modifications in a truly epigenetic fashion. Epigenetics was initially defined as any heritable change in gene expression patterns without changes in the DNA sequence. Now, epigenetic phenomena are often characterized as … Continue reading An evolutionary view of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
This 2019 McGill review discussed long-lasting effects of perinatal stress: “Epigenetic processes are involved in embedding the impact of early-life experience in the genome and mediating between social environments and later behavioral phenotypes. Since these phenotypes are apparent a long time after the early experience, the changes in gene expression programming must be stable. Although … Continue reading The epigenetics of perinatal stress
The founder of the PhenoAge epigenetic clock methodology authored this 2020 article: “The Ge[r]oscience paradigm suggests that targeting the aging process could delay or prevent the risk of multiple major age-related diseases. We need clinically valid measures of the underlying biological process and/or classification criteria for what it means to be biologically, rather than chronologically, … Continue reading Do epigenetic clocks measure causes or effects?
This 2019 Stanford human study developed an aging clock using blood plasma proteins: “We measured 2,925 plasma proteins from 4,331 young adults to nonagenarians [18 – 95] and developed a novel bioinformatics approach which uncovered profound non-linear alterations in the human plasma proteome with age. Waves of changes in the proteome in the fourth, seventh, … Continue reading A blood plasma aging clock
This 2019 Canadian rodent study found: “Folic acid (FA) supplementation mitigates sperm miRNA profiles transgenerationally following in utero paternal exposure to POPs [persistent organic pollutants]. Across the F1 – F4 generations, sperm miRNA profiles were less perturbed with POPs + FA compared to sperm from descendants of dams treated with POPs alone..and only in F1 … Continue reading Epigenetic inheritance and microRNAs
This 2019 McGill rodent study found: “Prenatal stress exacerbates pain after injury. Analysis of mRNA expression of genes related to epigenetic regulation and stress responses in the frontal cortex and hippocampus, brain structures implicated in chronic pain, showed distinct sex and region-specific patterns of dysregulation. In general, mRNA expression was most frequently altered in the … Continue reading Prenatal stress heightened adult chronic pain
This 2019 worldwide review of epigenetic clocks was a semi-anonymous mishmash of opinions, facts, hypotheses, unwarranted extrapolations, and beliefs. The diversity of viewpoints among the 21 coauthors wasn’t evident. 1. Citations of the coauthors’ works seemed excessive, and they apologized for omissions. However: Challenge 5 was titled “Single-cell analysis of aging changes and disease” and … Continue reading An epigenetic clock review by committee
This 2019 Washington State University rodent study found epigenetically inherited transgenerational effects in great-grand offspring due to their great-grandmothers’ toxicant exposures during pregnancy: “Previous studies found an increased susceptibility to obesity in F3 generation rats ancestrally exposed to the pesticide DDT, and an increase in a lean phenotype in the F3 generation rats ancestrally exposed … Continue reading A transgenerational view of the rise in obesity
This 2019 UK human study conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of two epigenetic clocks using 13,493 European-ancestry individuals aged between ten and 98 years: “Horvath-EAA, described in previous publications as ‘intrinsic’ epigenetic age acceleration (IEAA), can be interpreted as a measure of cell-intrinsic ageing that exhibits preservation across multiple tissues, appears unrelated to … Continue reading A GWAS meta-analysis of two epigenetic clocks
