Epigenetics

Epigenetics

Our genes determine who we are. When we see two identical twins, they look the same (they might not as they get older) and they act the same. There are many facts which bound identical twins together. Like running fast, facial expressions and laughing the same way. Because they come from the same egg and share the same genes, literally clones.
What if one of the twins has cancer, what is the other one supposed to do? Wait for symptoms? The video has an example of Anna Marie (twin) being cancer. And demonstrates that the question should be “how can two people so alike, be so unalike?” The answer is, (as we see in the mice example) there are exactly the same genes in identical twins body, however some genes might stay on all the time in one twins body, and the other twin might have methyl groups which turn (control –tighten or loosen them-) off those genes.
Epigenome: The overall epigenetic state of a cell. I really liked the example in the video. I think it is pretty good and simple. When we think genome as the hardware of a computer, the epigenome would be a software which tells the computer how to work, when to work and how much. It’s the epigenome which tells our cells what to be, like hair, skin etc. All cells have the same genes but their epigenome silents the unneeded ones make them different. However this situation is not permanent. For example in the experiment with mices, when we feed pregnant mother mice with rich methyl groups, we see it changes the color, and it’s an indicator that shows us the gene (sick one) has turned off.
Scientists made a research about the identical twins’ genes. As a result it shows us younger twins are almost like clones but the older ones are change epigenetically. And what we eat can affect the next generations (in a good or bad way). Cells can become abnormal and trigger diseases.
Few misplaced tags can kill a person. Cancer is a result of broken genes. And it’s a lot harder to fix damaged genes than to rearrange epigenetic tags. However we already have some drugs that we can use. Epigenetic Therapy; the idea of epigenetic therapy is to stay away from killing the cell. What scientists are trying to do is to change the instructions of cancer cells, reminding the cell that it shouldn’t be behaving that way by reactivating the genes. It seems like it is a good therapy, patients are happy. At the end of the video it indicates that we have a responsibility for our epigenome which can affect our children. We are not necessarily stuck with it, we can alter this.