环境因素引起的哺乳动物跨代DNA甲基化修饰现象

The Study of Influence of Environment on Transgenerational Inheritance of DNA Methylation in Mammals

经典遗传学认为生物的遗传信息是由基因决定的,DNA序列发生的改变可以传递给后代,而表观遗传修饰则由于细胞重编程作用不能被传递到后代。近年来的研究发现,一些环境因素引起的表观遗传修饰也可以传递给后代,而DNA甲基化是表观遗传修饰的主要机制之一,也是近年来研究跨代遗传的热点。本文对近年来环境因素在哺乳动物世代继承中的DNA甲基化修饰相关研究进行综述,为进一步研究跨代遗传中的表观遗传修饰机制提供参考。

Classical genetics suggests that the genetic information of the organism is determined by the genes, that is, only the change of DNA sequence can be inherited, but the epigenetic DNA modifications can＇t be inherited because of the cell reprograming. Recent studies have found that some of the epigenetic modification caused by environmental factors can also be passed to the offspring, and DNA methylation is one of the main mechanisms of epigenetic modification, which is a hot spot in the transgenerational inheritance field. Herein, we focus on the transgenerational inheritance of DNA methylation caused by environmental factors, which may provide some references for further study on transgenerational inheritance.