Epigenetics and the environment

by Ettore Meccia and Eugenia Dogliotti, Istituto Superiore di Sanità; Zdenko Herceg, International   Agency for Research on Cancer

DOI 10.12910/EAI2017-056

Recent studies revealed that epigenetic changes may be associated with aging and exposure to various environmental, dietary and lifestyle risk factors. Therefore, epigenetic changes that are risk factor-specific (“fingerprints”) may be instrumental in the discovery of new biomarkers for early diagnosis, prognosis and risk stratification, but also new targets for epigenetics-based therapies and prevention

If our genome would be solely a static combination of four nucleotide bases, we could not explain the diversity of cell types that characterize our tissues/organs but share an almost identical genome sequence.

This is because the fate of cell development and therefore the cell status is not only a matter of sequence but epigenetic modifications will contribute significantly to cell diversity by regulating global gene expression. …