Geneticists hunt control patterns A major project will attempt to map out just how genes are
controlled in the human body, scientists in the UK and Germany have told BBC News Online. The Human
Epigenome Project will look for patterns in our "life code" that are associated with gene regulation
but are also implicated in causing disease.
Researchers at Epigenomics AG in Berlin and the Sanger Institute in Cambridge will take part in the
five-year study.
It was the Sanger centre which decoded one-third of the DNA found in humans.
Along with their German colleagues, the UK institute staff will now search through the full sequence
for sites of so-called methylation.
Levels of complexity
These are locations along the DNA molecule where the structure of one of its four constituent units
- the base cytosine - has been modified by the addition of a methyl chemical group.
Changes to the DNA sequence - the order of the bases cytosine (C), guanine
(G), adenine (A) and thymine (T) - and its role in health and disease are increasingly well
understood thanks to the completion of the Human Genome Project.
But DNA methylation is a further layer of control and is regarded by scientists as one of the most
important regulators of gene activity.
This has led some to dub the methyl-tagged cytosines "the fifth base".
Their precise pattern is thought to determine whether or not certain genes are expressed in
particular tissues.
And as well as being important for normal development, methylation changes are detected in many
cancers and some developmental disorders such as Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome.
Methylation is linked to ageing, too, as the patterns change over time.
It is also thought this crucial system is influenced by a person's upbringing and lifestyle. In
effect, it is one of the means by which our environment influences our genetic make-up.
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Kind Regards, Robert Karl Stonjek.