Epigenetics.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I'm going to use this thread to put up examples of epigenetics, and how that impacts our lives.

First a definition:

http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=9322 (http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=9322)

"Epigenetics" Means What We Eat, How We Live and Love, Alters How Our Genes Behave"




DURHAM, N.C. – A mother rat withholds nurturing licks from its pup and elicits a brain change that impairs the pup's response to stress as an adult, researchers in Canada found. A pregnant woman's dietary deficits increase her offspring's risk of diabetes, stroke and heart disease later in life, researchers in England have shown.

These startling scientific discoveries illuminate the emerging field of epigenetic (http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=2629)s, in which single nutrients, toxins, behaviors or environmental exposures of any sort can silence or activate a gene without altering its genetic code in any way.

Rather, the environmental exposure triggers a chemical change in the body or brain that mobilizes a group of molecules – called a methyl group. The methyl group attaches to the control segment of a gene and either silences – or alternately activates – the gene. Either way, the gene veers off its intended course of activity.

Duke scientists describe methylation as putting gum on a light switch. The switch isn't broken, but the gum blocks its function.

"We can no longer argue whether genes or environment has a greater impact on our health and development, because both are inextricably linked," said Randy Jirtle (http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=5831), Ph.D., a genetics researcher in Duke's Department of Radiation Oncology and initiator of the upcoming epigenetics conference. Co-initiator of the conference is Fred Tyson, Ph.D., at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). "Each nutrient, each interaction, each experience can manifest itself through biochemical changes that ultimately dictate gene expression, whether at birth or 40 years down the road."

Such stealth changes often occur in embryonic or fetal development, but they set the stage for an adult's susceptibility to a host of diseases and behavioral responses, the data suggest. Moreover, epigenetic changes – so named because they sit on top of the gene and leave its sequence unchanged – can also be passed down from one generation to the next, said Jirtle.

The good news is that methylation is potentially reversible, he said. Unlike defective genes, which are damaged for life, methylated genes can be demethylated. And, methyl tags that are knocked off can be regained via nutrients, drugs, and enriching experiences.

The fact that gene behavior is far more malleable than once believed has critically shifted the scientific community's course in mining the human genome, said Jirtle. No longer are mutant genes sought as the sole cause of disease. The dramatic rise in obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other conditions of prosperous nations are increasingly pegged as epigenetic in nature, and may well claim their origins in faulty embryonic development, he said.

In one example, Jirtle showed that four common nutritional supplements – B12, folic acid, choline and betaine from sugar beets – fed to pregnant mice actually altered the coat colors (http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=6804) of their offspring. One or several of the nutrients methlyated the mouse agouti gene and gave rise to mice with brown coats instead of yellow coats. More importantly, he said, the supplements lowered the offspring's adult susceptibility to obesity, diabetes and cancer as compared to the unsupplemented offspring.

"Nutrition isn't a fleeting affair," said Jirtle. "We are, quite literally, what we eat as well as what our parents and even grandparents ate.

there is more at the URL..

Now for an epigenetics 101 on youtube. While it's loading, make tea and eat it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFK5xPhkhHM&feature=player_embedded

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10552212



Good night's sleep vital in keeping the sniffles away

4:00AM Saturday Jan 17, 2009


Fluff up the pillows and pull up the covers. Preventing the common cold may be as easy as getting more sleep.

Researchers paid healthy adults US$800 ($1500) to have cold viruses sprayed up their noses, then wait five days in a hotel to see if they got sick.

Habitual eight-hour sleepers were much less likely to get sick than those who slept less than seven hours or slept fitfully.

"The longer you sleep, the better off you are, the less susceptible you are to colds," said lead author Sheldon Cohen, who studies the effects of stress on health at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University.

Prior research has suggested that sleep boosts the immune system at cell level.

there is more...

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

This pdf is from the WHO, and I think it's epigenetics in action.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

While Bruce Lipton (http://forums.beyondvaccination.com/www.brucelipton.com) is the pioneer in epigenetics, I don't agree with a lot of what he "believes", however, his science makes absolute logical sense.

This is an interesting book written by Lipton (http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Belief-Unleashing-Consciousness-Miracles/dp/1401923119/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232311370&sr=1-1) but I agree with Dr Stephen Sagar's review.

[momofsaa]

This actually intrigues me as it may pertain to my daughter's disorder. One of the things I suspect as a possibility is that with the excessive stress I was under during my entire pregnancy that it may have caused some sort of 'misfire' as she was forming.
I mentioned this to her father admittedly as a way to blame him but it is something I have questioned. I'm not so interested in blaming so much but it will always be something that I will question and leave as a possible cause.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Lipton's point is that epigenetic damage can be reversed. You might find some of his book quite interesting. We are not held hostage to either our genes, or influences on them.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Here is a medical article about the impact of grandparents' epigenetics on grandchildren (http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v14/n11/pdf/nm1108-1186.pdf).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18287970

1: Pediatr Res. (http://javascript<b></b>:AL_get(this, 'jour', 'Pediatr Res.');) 2008 Mar;63(3):308-14.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/corehtml/query/egifs/http:--www.lwwonline.com-pt-pt-core-template-journal-lwwgateway-images-pmlogo.gif (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/utils/fref.fcgi?PrId=3159&itool=AbstractPlus-def&uid=18287970&db=pubmed&url=http://meta.wkhealth.com/pt/pt-core/template-journal/lwwgateway/media/landingpage.htm?doi=10.1203/PDR.0b013e318163a271) Links (http://javascript<b></b>:PopUpMenu2_Set(Menu18287970);)

Comment in: Pediatr Res. 2008 Mar;63(3):229-31. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18287959?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus)T he effect of early human diet on caudate volumes and IQ.

Isaacs EB (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Isaacs%20EB%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Gadian DG (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Gadian%20DG%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Sabatini S (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Sabatini%20S%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Chong WK (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Chong%20WK%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Quinn BT (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Quinn%20BT%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Fischl BR (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Fischl%20BR%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus), Lucas A (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Lucas%20A%22%5BAuthor%5D&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus).
MRC Childhood Nutrition Research Centre, University College London Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH, United Kingdom. e.isaacs@ich.ucl.ac.uk
Early nutrition in animals affects both behavior and brain structure. In humans, randomized trials show that early nutrition affects later cognition, notably in males. We hypothesized that early nutrition also influences brain structure, measurable using magnetic resonance imaging. Prior research suggested that the caudate nucleus may be especially vulnerable to early environment and that its size relates to IQ. To test the hypothesis that the caudate nucleus could be a neural substrate for cognitive effects of early nutrition, we compared two groups of adolescents, assigned a Standard- or High-nutrient diet in the postnatal weeks after preterm birth. Groups had similar birth status and neonatal course. Scans and IQ data were obtained from 76 adolescents and volumes of several subcortical structures were calculated. The High-nutrient group had significantly larger caudate volumes and higher Verbal IQ (VIQ). Caudate volumes correlated significantly with VIQ in the Standard-nutrient group only. Caudate volume was influenced by early nutrition and related selectively to VIQ in males, but not in females. Our findings may partly explain the effects of early diet on cognition and the predominant effects in males. They are among the first to show that human brain structure can be influenced by early nutrition.

PMID: 18287970

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Medical article: Epigenetics at the epicenter of modern medicine (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/299/11/1345).

Medical article: Genetics and Genomics for clinicians (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/299/11/1364).

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10504151&ref=rss (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10504151&ref=rss)
Unhealthy start to life 'costly'

5:00AM Tuesday April 15, 2008
By Martin Johnston (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/author/index.cfm?a_id=110)


Peter Gluckman

The failure of governments to ensure good nutrition for pregnant women and other factors that promote good health could be shaving several per cent off national incomes, says a leading medical academic.

"There's been a gross under-estimate of the costs of a poor start to life on a country's economy," Professor Peter Gluckman, director of the Liggins Institute at Auckland University, said last night.

Professor Gluckman is leading an international research project to quantify the costs to a country of factors like poor nutrition of pregnant women, babies and young children and the lack of support for breastfeeding.

These factors affect children's rates of growth, people's intellectual development and the prevalence of conditions like obesity, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

Members of the Healthy Start to Life project, including policy advisers, medical scientists and a World Bank economist, meet in Auckland and Wellington this week.

The Liggins Institute and its research partners have studied the origins of various diseases from the fetus and through human development.

“To focus on human development we need individuals, families, communities, politicians and agencies to understand that a healthy start to life will pay dividends for the whole of society, in time," Professor Gluckman said.

"I'm totally frustrated.

"A lot of good science has been done and this science has been paid lip service."

The research group's meetings fall in the week after Associate Education Minister Parekura Horomia was criticised for saying one reason some children did not eat breakfast was they were "trying to stay trim" - although he also stated that poverty might be the reason for some.

Professor Gluckman considered Mr Horomia's statement unhelpful.

"This is not the way children should lose weight," he said.

"It's clearly avoiding the fundamental issues that if we want a healthy society we have got to start with the whole life cycle from before women conceive, right through."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caveat. I don't agree with a lot that Gluckman has to say. He has got way ahead of himself, and his books show that. Epigenetics is very plastic, and children can change how their genes are programmed. ....

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hSvWiidot5qJlPinbF354ADI48aw

Middle East families shed light on autism genes: study

Jul 10, 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Research on large Middle Eastern families has helped scientists pinpoint six new genes implicated in autism, a new study published Thursday said.

The research "strongly supports the emerging idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain's ability to form new connections in response to experience -- consistent with autism's onset during the first year of life when many of these connections are normally made," a team led by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and members of the Autism Consortium said.

In traditional Arab societies, cousins commonly wed, making it more likely that rare mutations will be expressed, the team said in study published in Science.

And Middle Eastern families typically have significantly more children than those in the west, which makes them relatively more useful in genetic studies.

The Homozygosity Mapping Collaborative for Autism recruited 104 families from across the Arabic Middle East, Turkey and Pakistan, in which there was a high incidence of autism; 88 of the families included cousin marriages.

A team led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Christopher Walsh visited Turkey, Dubai, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to confirm the diagnoses, researchers said.

In their mapping, Walsh of Children's Hospital Boston, along with geneticist Eric Morrow of Massachusetts General, and Seung-Yun Yoo looked to compare the DNA of relatives with and without autism.

They also looked for recessive mutations, where the disease is seen only when a child has two copies of a particular gene.

"We check each set of chromosomes from beginning to end looking for one place where the child has two identical pieces of DNA on both chromosomes," said Walsh.

"Eventually we find a spot where all affected children have two identical chunks of DNA, and where unaffected children have something different."

Slightly more than six percent of the 88 families had rare inherited deletions in DNA regions linked to autism, the research found.

The 88 families were from eight countries: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

"Interestingly, not all the affected genes were actually deleted, but only prevented from turning on, offering hope that therapies could be developed to reactivate the genes," the researchers added in their statement.

Many genes can contribute to autism, researchers say, which makes it impossible to search for just one critical gene that causes the disease, as with cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease.

[cartersmom]

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2009/od-16.htm

The National Institutes of Health announced today that it will fund 22 grants on genome-wide studies of how epigenetic changes — chemical modifications to genes that result from diet, aging, stress, or environmental exposures — define and contribute to specific human diseases and biological processes.
The awards will build on the important work undertaken as part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research's Epigenomics Program. Approximately $62 million will be awarded over the next five years to study the epigenome in a number of diseases and conditions, including tumor development, hardening of the arteries, autism, glaucoma, asthma, aging, and abnormal growth and development.
"Epigenomics represents the next phase in our understanding of genetic regulation of health and disease," says NIH Director Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "These awards will address the extent to which diet and environmental exposures produce long lasting effects through changes in DNA regulation." The initiative was launched through the NIH Director's Office and, as part of the Roadmap, is expected to profoundly alter the way we understand, diagnose, and treat disease.
"This is the largest effort to date to apply epigenetics on a genome-wide scale to specific diseases," said James F. Battey, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, one of the lead NIH institutes for this Roadmap program.
The Roadmap Epigenomics Program was designed to characterize epigenetic modifications and to correlate the presence or absence of specific modifications with disease status. DNA methylation is a fundamental epigenetic modification that regulates gene expression and chromosome stability. This and other epigenetic modifications control gene activity by changing the three-dimensional structure of chromosomes. (See scientific illustration of epigenetic mechanisms at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/epigenomics/epigeneticmechanisms.asp (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/epigenomics/epigeneticmechanisms.asp).)
The awards announced today are funded by 11 NIH institutes and the NIH Office of the Director and are part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research's Epigenomics Program that began in 2007. The NIH contributors include the National Cancer Institute, the National Eye Institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research and the Office of Strategic Coordination in the NIH Office of the Director.
"The new grantees being announced will join a larger collaborative research effort that is working together to understand epigenetics and how it affects human health and disease," said Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
This health and disease-focused component of the NIH Roadmap Epigenomics Program builds on the previous four interrelated initiatives, but is the first to tackle questions related to diseases. The other four initiatives include the establishment of four epigenome mapping centers, the funding of an epigenomics data analysis and coordination center, the development of innovative technology in epigenetics, and the discovery of novel epigenetic changes.
"These studies will help increase our understanding of how factors such as environmental exposures, alcohol, drug abuse and stress can modify the effect of epigenetics on diseases," said Linda S. Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
The following awards are being made by NIH:

David A. Bennett, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Exploring the role of the Brain Epigenome: Cognitive Decline and Life Experiences.
Paul D. Coleman, Sun Health Research Institute, Sun City, Ariz., DNA Methylation in Alzheimer’s Disease and Normally Aged Brain.
Jessica J. Connelly, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Epigenomics of Atherosclerosis.
Francine Hughes Einstein, Yeshiva University, New York City, Genome-wide DNA Methylation Profiles Associated with Abnormal Intrauterine Growth.
Margaret Daniele Fallin, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Environment, the Perinatal Epigenome, and Risk for Autism and Related Disorders.
Gary Hugh Gibbons, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, Vascular Epigenome Dynamics in African-American Hypertensives.
Tim H.M. Huang, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, Epigenomics of Bisphenol A Exposure and Disease Risk.
Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif., Determinants for Genome-Wide Epigenomics in Metastatic Breast Cancer.
Yongmei Liu, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, N.C., Epigenome-Wide Association Study of DNA Methylation and Atherosclerosis.
Stephen J. Meltzer, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, The Temporal Epigenomic Program of Barrett’s Neoplastic Progression.
Shannath L. Merbs, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Pangenomic Analysis of DNA Methylation Marks in Glaucoma and Macular Degeneration.
Jonathan Mill, King’s College, London, A Multi-faceted Approach to Epigenomic Profiling in Alzheimer's Disorder. Roel A. Ophoff, University of California, Los Angeles, Epigenetic and Disease: The Role of DNA Methylation in Schizophrenia Susceptibility.
Art Petronis, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, DNA Methylome Analysis in Bipolar Disorder.
Gerd P. Pfeifer, City of Hope, Beckman Research Institute, Duarte, Calif., Aging and the Unstable Epigenome.
Evan D. Rosen, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Epigenomics of Human Insulin Resistance.
David A. Schwartz, National Jewish Health, Denver, Asthma: An Epidemic Caused by Epigenetics.
Kathleen E. Sullivan, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pa., Epigenomics of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE).
Katalin Susztak, Yeshiva University, New York City, Epigenetics Landscape of Chronic Kidney Disease.
Benjamin Tycko, Richard Mayeux, Columbia University, New York City, Epigenomics of Alzheimer's Disease.
Kyoko Yokomori, University of California, Irvine, Epigenomic Analysis of Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy.
Richard A. Young, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Mass., Epigenomic Mapping in Human Tumor Cells.
The Epigenomics Program is part of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Roadmap for Medical Research funded through the NIH Common Fund and is managed by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the Office of Strategic Coordination. The Roadmap is a series of initiatives designed to pursue major opportunities and gaps in biomedical research that no single NIH institute could tackle alone, but which the agency as a whole can address to make the biggest impact possible on the progress of medical research. Additional information about the NIH Roadmap can be found at www.nihroadmap.nih.gov (http://www.nihroadmap.nih.gov/).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov (http://www.nih.gov/).

[cartersmom]

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2009/od-16.htm


The National Institutes of Health announced today that it will fund 22 grants on genome-wide studies of how epigenetic changes — chemical modifications to genes that result from diet, aging, stress, or environmental exposures — define and contribute to specific human diseases and biological processes.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

please note that the first post has a video explaining epigenetics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFK5xPhkhHM&feature=player_embedded

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Heavy but good book on epigenetics can be had here; http://mirror.lib.unair.ac.id/bahan/EFOLDER/Developmental%20Origins%20of%20Health.pdf#page=93 Don't worry about the page number - the whole book will download. 3.88 mbs.

[bbrandonsmom]

Thanks. Looking on Amazon, the other books they wrote look interesting to read as well.

[bluets]

so david kirby has written this article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/autism-vaccine-_b_817879.html) and mentions in it an explosion of the autism rate in 1988-1992 or so time period. in my skimming of the article, he (and others) are proposing to look in depth at that cohort (along with later cohorts?)... I'm wondering if there could be something epigenetic as well going on with the parents or grandparents of that 1988-1992 (and subsequent) cohorts. then my brain explodes as i begin to mull over how one might get at that experimentally - what could be driving those changes? it's a vast question - vaccines, external environmental toxins, nutrition (or lack thereof), and perhaps others. when one considers what might be included in "external environmental toxins", that could be any one of those 80,000 compounds in the environment or any combination thereof (and then how we encounter those compounds - orally or nasally or topically). we start getting into very huge datasets, the likes of which most statisticians do not have current tools or techniques to use for analysis. it is truly a mind-blowing problem.

new book alert: Nutrition, Epigenetic Mechanisms, and Human Disease (http://books.google.com/books?id=6sF-KDH1LqAC)