Are epigenetics inherited?


 Epigenetic regulation of gene expression is a frequent process that occurs during somatic cell development, as well as in response to environmental signals and stresses, and epigenetic inheritance is the transmission of these modulations to children.

These changes must be heritable in the progeny of either cells or organisms, according to the basic definition of epigenetics. The phrase also refers to the alterations themselves, which are functionally meaningful changes to the genome that do not involve a nucleotide sequence change.

Parental imprinting is another type of epigenetic inheritance that was found in animals about ten years ago. Certain autosomal genes have atypical inheritance patterns in parental imprinting. The mouse Igf2 gene, for example, is only expressed in a mouse if it was inherited from the mouse's father.

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