BIOC14H3 Lecture : lec 16
Document Summary
Whether a gene is turned on or off is called epigenetics: not only is the sequence important, but there is an overlying epigenetics phenomena that allows the genes to turn on or off. This explains how humans can be created with less than. Having the embryo in the culture tissue causes some genes to turn on and off: expectation: as the altered genome passes to children, any epigenetics syndromes will be removed. The epigenetics switch turned off in the next generations as well: maybe imprinting was used as a trans-generational evolutionary mechanism. Autism is highly heritable (75% concordance in mz twins). Breast cancer ( later onset for the disease late 40s concordance rate-less than 20%). The hope with the hgp was that once we discover all the different variations that account for these disease it would be just a matter of sequencing the genome and finding the snps. The problem is that it doesn t work out that way.
