What are Epigenetics? What are epigenetics? In an article by Current Science, entitled “Tag Team,” by Kirsten Weir, scientists at Duke University did an experiment. There are two mice. One of the mice is overweight, blonde, and prone to cancer and diabetes. The other mouse is skinny, brunette, and healthy. Of course you are thinking that the two mice are cleary not related in any way because they are total opposites. What you don’t know is that the mice are actually a lot similar then they appear. These two mice are genetically identical and share the exact same genes. How can this be? The answer is epigenetics. Epigenetics are little chemical ”tags” attached to your genes. Although epigenetics are small, they can do very powerful things such …show more content…
This so called bookmark helps your body in remembering which genes to keep switched off and which ones to keep switched on. Although the two mice have the exact same genes, their epigenetic tags make them look different. Scientists kept the mother of the brown mouse on a strict diet of many nutrients. This diet then gave methyl groups, which are a type of epigenetic that can turn genes off, to the brown mouse who was being used for the experiment. Therefore, the brown mouse did not show the qualities of the blonde mouse because the methyl groups turned off that gene. The obvious question still remains. If these mice have epigenetics attached to their genes, do humans have them as well? The answer to that question is yes. Your genes in your body stay the same throughout your life, but your epigenome is forever changing. As you grow up, new tags come and replace your old tags. Your chemical bookmarks changing constantly like this can affect things including the way you look or to decide if you will get a certain disease. Things that can change your epigenetics are inflammation, chemicals in the environment, and a person’s social environment. All of this changing of your tags has been linked to many popular diseases such as diabetes, colon cancer, and