Epigenetics- exploring

[HydrogenBond]

The DNA is the like hard drive of the cell. It contains all the data, programs and processes for the cell. But like a computer, once processes and programs are active, they can alter the contents of the hard drive, which is this case is done via epi-genetics.

If you were a soldier interacting in the field, one would have learned procedures for dealing with a wide range of anticipated situations. But you can't anticipate everything in that one book of procedures. Built into the DNA hard drive are the common procedures for that cell. Real time improvisation, is done with epi-genetics.

Sometimes the cell may need to alter the existing procedures to deal with the stress. Turning genes off via methylation, is one of the many options for adapting on the fly. This could be part of an energy saver mode. Finite resources need to be diverted, when trying to deal with an unknown stress on the fly.

We are being very careful to keep the two effects separate, genetic and epi-genetics, due to the philosophical wall. But I will take it one step further, can epi-genetics also be used to alter the hard drive procedures, in more than a random way? Life not only tries to adjusts to any stress in real time, but eventually adapts a routine, which we call selective advantage. Satisfying unknowns on the fly, will often lead to new things being written in the next book of procedures.

[lawcat]

So, if I am understanding correctly, the idea is simply to turn off undesirable genes? (Not to reengineer genes, but to simply turn them off.)

So, the premise is, the species are what they are, and they have some undesirable genetic traits. To make the species better, we should turn those bad genes off?

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by lawcat

So, if I am understanding correctly, the idea is simply to turn off undesirable genes? (Not to reengineer genes, but to simply turn them off.)

Or on...and it doesn't have to be undesirable genes.

So, the premise is, the species are what they are, and they have some undesirable genetic traits. To make the species better, we should turn those bad genes off?

What premise?

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by JMJones0424

Short answer is yes, long answer is far more complicated.
. I do not see how hobby-level gardeners would be able to incorporate any new techniques with this knowledge though.

It sure would be nice though, if you could do something simple like pH shocking parent stock at a specific stage of seed development in order to increase the expression of a desirable trait.

Laving aside hybrids which as you say increases the complexity, just growing sage in my garden for ten years saving the seed and replanting it every year MAY result in epigenetic changes
I choose sage as I am climate zone 9. Sage is viable up to 8 Then it gets picky--and usually dies on me. So if i save my seed eventually. . .?

I had a friend who was "re-native-ing" her small farm. She was after a particular native grass seed that used to grow on her farm. Eventually she found some in Queensland about 2,000 miles north. She grew it but it never thrived. She later found that the reason was that it was blooming about 6-8 weeks earlier than its native pollinators would appear locally.
ISTM that the grass had adapted to its warmer northern climate. Bringing it back however it was out of synch. with the environmental processes around it!

[Moontanman]

Coral farming shows the effects of epigenetics. Coral collected from the wild is much harder to grow in aquaria than coral that has been grown over many years and divided by "fraging" As the coral is grown in aquariums it slowly adapts to the conditions and grows better and better. Since there is no sexual reproduction involved but only cutting pieces from one piece of coral and effectively cloning the coral epigenes would seem to explain how coral that has been divided many times in captivity and grown this way over many years adapts to the condition of aquaria much better than wild caught coral. Some times even the form of the corals change even though it is genetically identical to the original wild collected coral.

[lemit]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

So, if I save my own seed, eventually i will have plants better adapted to grow in my backyard?

No, but maybe you can father lots of children.

But seriously, I'm curious about something. Is epigenesis the process of mutation described so luridly--and improbably--by the Japanese and American movies of the 'Fifties? Instead of giant insects or shrinking humans, are we seeing an increase in asthma and possibly in autism, as well as lots of new flu varieties?

If I am making sense here--an unlikely prospect--what do we do in this undramatic but potentially new environment of many potential environments, in which our immune systems are increasingly put at risk and are in turn putting us at risk?

Thanks. (And sorry about the joke.)

--lemit