Aug 2026· Trends in Genetics· 0 citations· 80 references
Medicine
TL;DR
Key concepts in epigenetic inheritance are clarified and testable criteria are defined, helping the field move from cataloging biological markers to conducting rigorous human research by clarifying key concepts and defining testable criteria as a guiding framework.
Abstract
In multicellular organisms, epigenetic inheritance is a process by which traits induced by life experiences or environmental factors in a parent are passed to offspring without involving changes in the DNA sequence, but rather in the epigenome. While epigenetic inheritance is evident in many species, from plants to rodents, it remains unproven in humans because of biological barriers, methodological complexity, and the difficulty of disentangling environmental from social and genetic factors. The unique human context of prolonged parental care, as well as cross-generational cultural and societal effects, compounds these difficulties and highlights the need for clear criteria to assess epigenetic inheritance claims. This article aims to help the field move from cataloging biological markers to conducting rigorous human research by clarifying key concepts and defining testable criteria as a guiding framework.
Abstract Epigenetic inheritance is a form of transmission of features or traits acquired by experience or environmental exposure that does not involve any changes in the DNA sequence unlike genetic heredity. Epigenetic inheritance is actively studied in animal models and humans and has major implications for biology, h...
Maria A. Dimitriu, E. Jaspers, Eduardo Cáceres Pajuelo et al.· Environmental epigenetics· 0 citations
Abstract Introduction Sex development is precisely orchestrated by genetic and epigenetic mechanisms; disruption of this intricate process leads to differences in sex development (DSD). Content n this review, we systematically examine the role of epigenetic mechanisms in DSD, including DNA methylation, histone modifica...
Meng Zhou, Xinran Cheng· Journal of Pediatric Endocri...· 0 citations
Imprinting is an epigenetic mechanism found in many diploid organisms that enables discrimination between genetic material inherited from one or the other parent. It has been predominantly studied in mammals, where, in the adult, it affects the expression of a limited set of genes (in most higher mammals) or leads to p...
Autosomal random monoallelic expression (aRME) occurs when either one or both parental alleles of autosomal genes are stochastically expressed in individual cells, leading to allelic heterogeneity within an isogenic population. With growing evidence supporting the observation of aRME across different biological systems...
Harshada Jadhav, S. Gayen· Current Opinion in Genetics...· 0 citations
Current evidence shows that social and environmental conditions present from the earliest stages of life can influence health and disease trajectories. From the perspective of the DOHaD (developmental origins of health and disease) paradigm, the social determinants of health interact with nutritional, environmental, to...
L. Strada· Archivos Argentinos de Pedia...· 0 citations
This work examines puberty, a period of intense hormone-dependent proliferation that confers reproductive capacity, as a plausible but understudied window of vulnerability for accelerated mutagenesis, and reveals that somatic mutations accumulate approximately linearly with age across tissues, from a few hundred per ce...
O. Sergeyev, V. Ashapkin, D. Korostin et al.· Ageing Research Reviews· 0 citations
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