DNA methylation is a type of epigenetic marking that strongly influences chromatin structure and gene expression in plants and mammals. Over the past decade, DNA methylation has been intensively investigated in order to elucidate its control mechanisms. These studies have shown that small RNAs are involved in the induction of DNA methylation, that there is a relationship between DNA methylation and histone methylation, and that the base excision repair pathway has an important role in DNA demethylation. Some aspects of DNA methylation have also been shown to be shared with mammals, suggesting that the regulatory pathways are, in part at least, evolutionarily conserved. Considerable progress has been made in elucidating the mechanisms that control DNA methylation; however, many aspects of the mechanisms that read the information encoded by DNA methylation and mediate this into downstream regulation remain uncertain, although some candidate proteins have been identified. DNA methylation has a vital role in the inactivation of transposons, suggesting that DNA methylation is a key factor in the evolution and adaptation of plants.
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Longitudinal DNA methylation profiles in saliva of offspring from mothers with gestational diabetes: associations with early childhood growth patterns.
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Department of Endocrinology and Nutrition, Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital, 29010, Málaga, Spain.
Background: The prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is rising globally, particularly among children exposed to adverse intrauterine environments, such as those associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Epigenetic modifications, specifically DNA methylation, have emerged as mechanisms by which early environmental exposures can predispose offspring to metabolic diseases. This study aimed to investigate DNA methylation differences in children born to mothers with GDM compared to non-GDM mothers, using saliva samples, and to assess the association of these epigenetic patterns with early growth measurements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSomatic mutation as an explanation for epigenetic aging.
Nat Aging
January 2025
Program in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
DNA methylation marks have recently been used to build models known as epigenetic clocks, which predict calendar age. As methylation of cytosine promotes C-to-T mutations, we hypothesized that the methylation changes observed with age should reflect the accrual of somatic mutations, and the two should yield analogous aging estimates. In an analysis of multimodal data from 9,331 human individuals, we found that CpG mutations indeed coincide with changes in methylation, not only at the mutated site but with pervasive remodeling of the methylome out to ±10 kilobases.
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J Nutr
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Department of Animal Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA. Electronic address:
Background: Supplementing choline and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) to pregnant gilts modified fetal pig hepatic global DNA methylation induced by gestational malnutrition, suggesting that gene expression and regulation and its associated metabolic pathways are affected in the liver of offspring during growth and development.
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudy on the developmental, behavioral toxicity, and toxicological mechanism of the antidepressant drug venlafaxine and its active metabolites in zebrafish.
Environ Toxicol Chem
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School of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, PR China.
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