8 ms·
I'm a complete layman here, but what is the difference exactly?
by sensanaty 2y ago
I'm a complete layman here, but what is the difference exactly?
- bigbacaloa 2y ago[dead]
- arrosenberg 2y agoDNA is source code, and there is a bunch of RNA processes that read it and do stuff to make you live. Parts of DNA can be turned on and off, that’s called expression. Epigenetics is the study of how genes are expressed. Gene expression can change without the genome itself changing depending on external conditions, which is a key part of adaptability.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- derektank 2y agoThe gene itself determines the shape and character of a protein; Gene expression refers to the quantity of a protein produced. Changes to the genome are long lasting and somewhat rare inside a living person, while changes to the epigenome happen fairly regularly. A good way to think of this is cell differentiation. Every cell in your body, except eggs and sperm, contains a copy of your entire genome but what differentiates a nerve cell from a liver cell from a skin cell is gene expression. All it takes is some changes to the epigenome of a stem cell during mitosis for one the resulting cells to become a new, differentiated cell.
- rcthompson 2y agoImagine you have the text of a book in a word processor. You can change the text by typing new words or deleting ones that are there. You can also change the font, size, alignment, etc. The latter category of changes does not alter the words in the text, but it can affect how that text is interpreted, which parts of the text a reader focuses on, etc. The difference between a genetic alteration and an epigenetic alteration is conceptually similar. Genetics is changing the "text" of the genome while epigenetics is changing aspects of the genome that affect how that "text" is interpreted and used.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoOne is heritable, the other mostly not.
- derefr 2y agoPersonally, I think of DNA as being like the Linux kernel codebase. There's a lot of raw "code" there — but not all of it ends up in every running kernel! DNA methyl-groups, acetylated histones, etc — these are the config file generated by running `menuconfig`. They determine: 1. which components of the kernel the "compiler toolchain" (RNA polymerase) will actually "compile" (transcribe) into kernel-module objects (RNA sequences, proteins) — in turn determining which "features" (developmental or metabolic processes) each of the components (cell/tissue types) of the resulting system (organism) will have; and 2. which #IFDEFs (coding regions) within those modules will actually be macro-enabled (expressed) during compile-time (transcription) — in turn influencing / varying / tuning the strategies and logic (frequency of production / likelihood of expression, final shape / folding / binding affinities of proteins) used by any given component (cell/tissue type) to perform a given "feature" (developmental or metabolic process). (And just a tweak to steer this intuition pump — your body doesn't have one kernel, compiled once at conception; rather, your body is more like a distributed system composed of machines running Gentoo — every cell has its own kernel, and each cell is "tweaking" and "recompiling" its kernel regularly. When cells undergo mitosis, both daughter cells inherit these tweaks — that's like setting up a new one of these machines by mirroring the hard drive from an existing machine, carrying over not just the kernel but also the at-snapshot version of the `menuconfig` configuration file.)
- relaxing 2y ago> Personally, I think of DNA as being like the Linux kernel codebase oh my god would you shut up already