Epigenetic Landscapes

Epigenetic Landscapes PDF

Author: Susan Merrill Squier

Publisher: Duke University Press Books

Published: 2017-12-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780822368601

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Devised in the 1940s by the biologist C. H. Waddington, the epigenetic landscape is a metaphor for how gene regulation modulates cellular development. As a scientific model, it fell out of use in the late 1960s but returned at the beginning of the twenty-first century with the advent of big-data genomic research because of its utility among scientists across the life sciences to think more creatively about and to discuss genetics. In Epigenetic Landscapes Susan Merrill Squier follows the model’s cultural trail, from its first visualization by the artist John Piper to its use beyond science. Squier examines three cases in which the metaphor has been imaginatively deployed to illustrate complex systems that link scientific and cultural practices: graphic medicine, landscape architecture, and bioArt. Challenging reductive understandings of epigenetics, Squier boldly reclaims the broader significance of the epigenetic landscape as a figure at the nexus of art, design, and science.

Epigenetics in Psychiatry

Epigenetics in Psychiatry PDF

Author: Jacob Peedicayil

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2021-08-21

Total Pages: 848

ISBN-13: 0128235780

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Epigenetics in Psychiatry, Second Edition covers all major areas of psychiatry in which extensive epigenetic research has been performed, fully encompassing a diverse and maturing field, including drug addiction, bipolar disorder, epidemiology, cognitive disorders, and the uses of putative epigenetic-based psychotropic drugs. Uniquely, each chapter correlates epigenetics with relevant advances across genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics. The book acts as a catalyst for further research in this growing area of psychiatry. This new edition has been fully revised to address recent advances in epigenetic understanding of psychiatric disorders, evoking data consortia (e.g., CommonMind, ATAC-seq), single cell analysis, and epigenome-wide association studies to empower new research. The book also examines epigenetic effects of the microbiome on psychiatric disorders, and the use of neuroimaging in studying the role of epigenetic mechanisms of gene expression. Ongoing advances in epigenetic therapy are explored in-depth. Fully revised to discuss new areas of research across neuronal stem cells, cognitive disorders, and transgenerational epigenetics in psychiatric disease Relates broad advances in psychiatric epigenetics to a modern understanding of the genome, transcriptome, and proteins Catalyzes knowledge discovery in both basic epigenetic biology and epigenetic targets for drug discovery Provides guidance in research methods and protocols, as well how to employ data from consortia, single cell analysis, and epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) Features chapter contributions from international leaders in the field

Epigenetic Landscapes

Epigenetic Landscapes PDF

Author: Susan Merrill Squier

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2017-11-03

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0822372606

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Devised in the 1940s by the biologist C. H. Waddington, the epigenetic landscape is a metaphor for how gene regulation modulates cellular development. As a scientific model, it fell out of use in the late 1960s but returned at the beginning of the twenty-first century with the advent of big-data genomic research because of its utility among scientists across the life sciences to think more creatively about and to discuss genetics. In Epigenetic Landscapes Susan Merrill Squier follows the model’s cultural trail, from its first visualization by the artist John Piper to its use beyond science. Squier examines three cases in which the metaphor has been imaginatively deployed to illustrate complex systems that link scientific and cultural practices: graphic medicine, landscape architecture, and bioArt. Challenging reductive understandings of epigenetics, Squier boldly reclaims the broader significance of the epigenetic landscape as a figure at the nexus of art, design, and science.

Epigenetics

Epigenetics PDF

Author: C. David Allis

Publisher: CSHL Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 503

ISBN-13: 0879697245

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The regulation of gene expression in many biological processes involves epigenetic mechanisms. In this new volume, 24 chapters written by experts in the field discuss epigenetic effects from many perspectives. There are chapters on the basic molecular mechanisms underpinning epigenetic regulation, discussion of cellular processes that rely on this kind of regulation, and surveys of organisms in which it has been most studied. Thus, there are chapters on histone and DNA methylation, siRNAs and gene silencing; X-chromosome inactivation, dosage compensation and imprinting; and discussion of epigenetics in microbes, plants, insects, and mammals. The last part of the book looks at how epigenetic mechanisms act in cell division and differentiation, and how errors in these pathways contribute to cancer and other human diseases. Also discussed are consequences of epigenetics in attempts to clone animals. This book is a major resource for those working in the field, as well as being a suitable text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on gene regulation.

The Epigenetics Revolution

The Epigenetics Revolution PDF

Author: Nessa Carey

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2012-03-06

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0231530714

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Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the twenty-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics. Nessa Carey, a leading epigenetics researcher, connects the field's arguments to such diverse phenomena as how ants and queen bees control their colonies; why tortoiseshell cats are always female; why some plants need cold weather before they can flower; and how our bodies age and develop disease. Reaching beyond biology, epigenetics now informs work on drug addiction, the long-term effects of famine, and the physical and psychological consequences of childhood trauma. Carey concludes with a discussion of the future directions for this research and its ability to improve human health and well-being.

Organisers & Genes

Organisers & Genes PDF

Author: Conrad Hal Waddington

Publisher:

Published: 1940

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13:

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Conrad Hal Waddington's Organisers and Genes, published in 1940, is a summary of available research and theoretical framework for many concepts related to tissue differentiation in the developing embryo. The book is composed of two main conceptual sections. The first section explores the action and nature of the organizer, while the second section delves into genes and their influence on development. In this book Waddington explored organizers in terms of their capacity and method of induction. First he examined the nature of induction, discussing crucial experiments concerning the organizer, including Hans Spemann's discovery of the organizer, and his own research into organizers in higher birds and mammals. Waddington separated the action of the organizer into two distinct categories, evocation and individuation, discussed below. The main experimental approach discussed in this book involved grafting organizing tissue from one embryo or region of an embryo to another. Waddington described evocation as non-assimilative induction, or a one-way inducing signal. He presented this as a chemical signal and illustrated evocation with the dead organizer experiment. The dead organizer was shown to be capable of inducing differentiation of neural tissue in the ectoderm. He also included chemical induction by estrogens and steroids as other evocative signals. An important aspect of any signal of evocation, as presented by Waddington, is that the signal is specific to the differentiation of a certain tissue type.

The Ontogeny of Information

The Ontogeny of Information PDF

Author: Susan Oyama

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2000-03-16

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0822380668

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The Ontogeny of Information is a critical intervention into the ongoing and perpetually troubling nature-nurture debates surrounding human development. Originally published in 1985, this was a foundational text in what is now the substantial field of developmental systems theory. In this revised edition Susan Oyama argues compellingly that nature and nurture are not alternative influences on human development but, rather, developmental products and the developmental processes that produce them. Information, says Oyama, is thought to reside in molecules, cells, tissues, and the environment. When something wondrous occurs in the world, we tend to question whether the information guiding the transformation was pre-encoded in the organism or installed through experience or instruction. Oyama looks beyond this either-or question to focus on the history of such developments. She shows that what developmental “information” does depends on what is already in place and what alternatives are available. She terms this process “constructive interactionism,” whereby each combination of genes and environmental influences simultaneously interacts to produce a unique result. Ontogeny, then, is the result of dynamic and complex interactions in multileveled developmental systems. The Ontogeny of Information challenges specialists in the fields of developmental biology, philosophy of biology, psychology, and sociology, and even nonspecialists, to reexamine the existing nature-nurture dichotomy as it relates to the history and formation of organisms.

Epigenetics in Plants of Agronomic Importance: Fundamentals and Applications

Epigenetics in Plants of Agronomic Importance: Fundamentals and Applications PDF

Author: Raúl Alvarez-Venegas

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-07-22

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 3319079719

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Over the past decades, chromatin remodelling has emerged as an important regulator of gene expression and plant defense. This book provides a detailed understanding of the epigenetic mechanisms involved in plants of agronomic importance. The information presented here is significant because it is expected to provide the knowledge needed to develop in the future treatments to manipulate and selectively activate/inhibit proteins and metabolic pathways to counter pathogens, to treat important diseases and to increase crop productivity. New approaches of this kind and the development of new technologies will certainly increase our knowledge of currently known post-translational modifications and facilitate the understanding of their roles in, for example, host-pathogen interactions and crop productivity. Furthermore, we provide important insight on how the plant epigenome changes in response to developmental or environmental stimuli, how chromatin modifications are established and maintained, to which degree they are used throughout the genome, and how chromatin modifications influence each another.

The Origin of Individuals

The Origin of Individuals PDF

Author: Jean-Jacques Kupiec

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 981270499X

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In the 17th century, Descartes put forth the metaphor of the machine to explain the functioning of living beings. In the 18th century, La Mettrie extended the metaphor to man. The clock was then used as the paradigm of the machine. In the 20th century, this metaphor still held but the clock was replaced by a computer. Nowadays, the organism is viewed as a robot obeying signals emanating from a computer program controlled by genetic information. This book shows that such a conception leads to contradictions not only in the theory of biology but also in its experimental research program, thereby impeding its development. The analysis of this problem is based on the most recent experimental data obtained in molecular biology as well as the history and philosophy of biology. It shows that the machine theory did not succeed in breaking with Aristotle's finalism. The book presents a new approach to biological systems based on cellular Darwinism. Genes are ruled by probabilistic mechanisms allowing cells to differentiate stochastically. Embryo development is not governed by a determinist genetic program but by natural selection occurring among cell populations inside the organism. This theory has considerable philosophical consequences. Man may be a machine but he is a random one.

Epigenetic Drug Discovery

Epigenetic Drug Discovery PDF

Author: Wolfgang Sippl

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-11-26

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 3527809260

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This broad view of epigenetic approaches in drug discovery combines methods and strategies with individual targets, including new and largely unexplored ones such as sirtuins and methyl-lysine reader proteins. Presented in three parts - Introduction to Epigenetics, General Aspects and Methodologies, and Epigenetic Target Classes - it covers everything any drug researcher would need in order to know about targeting epigenetic mechanisms of disease. Epigenetic Drug Discovery is an important resource for medicinal chemists, pharmaceutical researchers, biochemists, molecular biologists, and molecular geneticists.