【转载】再谈表观遗传学

   

（1）

表观（后成，渐成）遗传学是关于我们的基因能被我们的行为、吃入或吸入的物质而打开或关闭的研究。这项科学很新颖，它的意义受到热烈地争论。尽管约10年以前人类基因组工程预料测绘一个人的基因将会告诉你所有你需要知道的关于你的身体将如何行为，但在本质上，但这种确信近年来已经削弱了，其原因之一可能就是表观遗传学，基因如何受到行为的鼓励。这也是为什么你或曾想过我们分析带有完全相同基因的人，随着他们年龄增长，他们看上去会越来越不相像，并且容易患上不同的疾病。

——《文献档案》/《基因兴奋剂使用》，BBC 2014/1/14

(17s57s)

Epigenetics is the study of how our genes can be stitched on or off or turned up or down like a dimmer switch on a light by what we do, or eat, or inhale. The science is new, and its implications hotly contested. But essentially it argues that while, maybe ten years ago, the Human Genome Project predicted that mapping a person’s genes would tell you all you need to know about how their body will behave; such certainty has ebbed away in recent years. And one of the reasons could be epigenetics, how genes are encouraged to behave, which is why once you’ve thought we examine people who may share exactly the same genes but who look less similar as they age and susceptible to different diseases.

-- Documentary Archive / Gene Doping, BBC 2014/1/14

（2）

表观遗传学在改变神经元如何相互连接。表观遗传学研究的是非核酸分子。基因是由DNA组成的。你还有非DNA的分子也坐在这DNA上……但关键是它们不是DNA，基本上它们就如同图书馆的图书管理人员。如果说DNA是书的话，表观遗传分子就是图书管理员。有一位图书管理员在你每次来图书馆时想让一本书被阅读，他或她说：来读这本书，来读这本书，来读这本书。对于他或她不喜欢的书，放到橱柜里，不让它们出去。

——《演说家论坛》/《丹尼尔谈青少年的脑与心理》，KUOW公共电台 2013/1/24

(36m27s)

Epigenetics is changing how neurons connect to each other. Epigenetics are non-nucleic acid molecules. Genes are made of DNA. And you have non-DNA molecules sitting on the DNA… But the point is that they are not DNA, but they are like, basically they are like librarians in library. If the DNA is, are the books, then the epigenetic molecules are the librarians. And there is a librarian that wants one book to be read every time you come to the library. He or she says here read this one. Here read this one. Here read this one. And here is one he or she doesn’t like, put them in a closet and don’t let them out.

-- Speakers Forum / Inside the Teenage Brain with Daniel Siegel, KUOW Public Radio 2014/1/24