表观遗传学研究进展

 概述了表观遗传调节模式、表观遗传调节的效应、植物表观遗传学的研究进展等。在每种细胞中,都会发生一部分特异基因激活、另一部分基因抑制的现象,形成多种基因表达模式。表观遗传指DNA序列不发生变化,而基因表达发生可遗传改变的现象。表观遗传学改变包括DNA甲基化、组蛋白修饰、非编码RNA作用等,产生基因组印记、母性影响、基因沉默、核仁显性、休眠转座子激活等效应。表观遗传变异是环境因素和细胞内遗传物质间交互作用的结果,其效应通过调节基因表达,控制生物学表型来实现。正是因为表观修饰对于维持生物体内环境和各器官系统功能的重要性,表观遗传的异常会引发疾病,这也成为药物和治疗方案设计的着眼点。

Overview on Epigenetics and Its Progress

Epigenetic regulation modes, epigenetic regulatory effects, and the research progresses in plant epigenetic are summarized. According to classical genetics, nucleic acids are the foundation of heredity, and the hereditary information of life is stored in the base sequence of nucleic acids. The change of base sequence might lead to phenotypic variations of organisms, and these variations might pass on to the next generation. Within one organism, the different types of cells have their own unique gene expression patterns, although they share the same genetic background. It is caused by activating some special sets of genes, meanwhile suppressing the other. This phenomenon is known as epigenetic modification. Epigenetics is a phenomenon for altering gene expression pattern; however changes in the underlying DNA sequence of the gene are not involved. Its process includes DNA methylation, histone modification, and non-coding RNA regulation, etc. Its manifestation includes genomic imprinting, maternal effect, gene silencing, nucleoli dominance, and dormant transposon activation, etc. Epigenetic modification is the result of interactions between environmental factors and intracellular genetic materials. Through gene expression regulation, epigenetic modification is able to control the phenotype of an organism. Due to its importance for maintaining stable environment inside an organism and normal functions of organs, abnormal epigenetic modification could lead to disease. It is why today epigenetics becomes a hot research spot on the drug design and therapy development.