Almost everyone has a favorite flower, something they'd love to grow in a garden outside and view everyday. But so many beautiful flowers struggle when faced with severe weather, especially ones involving heavy winds. A new discovery under the sea may provide an answer to how these sought after flowers can stand strong. 

A seaweed found in the Pacific, Calliarthron cheilosporioides, stands tall despite being beaten down over and over again by waves and currents that the ocean brings. Biochemists at Stanford University examined this seaweed, that at first glance appears like coral because of its tough structure. As anyone who has been in the ocean knows, coral breaks very easily, and yet this seaweed with coral like features does not. This is due to connective tissues that runs through the hardened areas and allows for flexibility. For more on this read the article yourself.

How does this relate to garden greens? This is some speculation done on my part, but this seaweed could provide researchers the opportunity to look at the cells that make this connective tissue, isolate the gene, and plant it into other plants to help them grow strong. Plants have a woody stalk making them inflexible, which explains why they break so easily. The DNA from this seaweed could be an opportunity to strengthen these plants and make them last longer. But will this compromise their beauty? And is this an important topic to be pursued? 

How contagious is ring worm?

I was prepared to write about epigenetics again and go more into the chemical reactions that take place, how the methylation occurs, but recent happenings in my life have changed my topic for today.

I just adopted a 3 month old kitten and he had his first check-up today. He has a patch of dry skin with no hair above his right eye, which I originally thought was due to a wound from a fight earlier in his life, and then someone suggested it could be mange...a skin disease caused by mites, but the veterinarian diagnosed it as ring worm. She warned me that ring worm is very contagious and can be passed from human to human, animal to animal, human to pet, and pet to human. It's transferred by direct contact, and of course my kitten has shared my bed, snuggled up next to me, for the past week. The veterinarian told me she has been working for 20 years with animals, has seen plenty of ring worms in dogs/cats, and has only gotten it once or twice. On the other hand, there have been lab technicians that merely touch the animal and have symptoms within a few days.

A little background on ring worm. First of all it's not actually a worm. It's caused by a fungus that gets under the skin and can appear in many forms, a red ring on the skin, red, dry, scaly patches on the skin, or a rash. Ring worm is caused by many different species of the fungi, but the type my kitten has is Microsporum canis, which fluoresced green under UV light. Browsing through internet postings on ring worm I've discovered it can lay dormant up to two weeks or can appear within a few days of exposure, so that should make my next few weeks fun. It is curable through topical creams or orally ingested pills. It's not a very fast treatment, it can take up to a month, minimum, to fully clear up.

After reading up on ring worm, I have fully cleaned my apartment and will clean in every few days to remove any spores that might be dropped off my kitten; these spores can stick around for up to 18 months, it's not like a bacteria or parasite that dies within hours of not being on a host. Questions I thought of were why did some personal exposed to ring worm get infected the first time and others can have repeated contact and get it once or twice? What is it about some people that makes them more susceptible to diseases and infections?

Epigenetics could offer explanation to why some people are more susceptible than others depending on the childhood they led, if they were sickly as children and always took medication, not building up a strong immune system, or if there was something in their parent's past that could effect them. I was raised with the idea that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, a little dirt in the wound wouldn't hurt so fingers crossed I fight it off, thought with the amount of direct contact I've had we'll see. And I guess I did bring it back around to epigenetics.

Why do you act like your parents?

Growing up, kids want to be exactly like their parents, or want to be nothing like their parents. It's not always the kids say though. They can change their behavior depending on how they want to reflect their parents, but there are some characteristics that are out of their control.

You know you get your looks from your parents through DNA and your genes. Most people also know they inherit certain behaviors from their ancestors, i.e. depression running in the family, cancer running in the family, alcoholism running in the family. Is there a gene that is related to depression? It turns out epigenetics explains these inheritances. Epigenetics does not depend on what you eat and do growing up, but like other genes, epigenes can be past from parents to offspring, meaning what your parents eat, drank, did, the environment they grew up in, affect you as well. Epigenetics can be passed from generation to generation just as the gene for eye color can be.

The key to epigenetics is methylation, the addition or removal of methyl groups along the nucleotide sequence can explain certain behaviors. The methyl placement can be passed on from generation to generation. An article in Discover Magazine, titled "Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes " explains the background of epigenetics and how methyl groups can be added. Some methyl group placements are inherited, others are effected prenatally, and others are effected postnatally. The majority of these changes are brought on by the environment you grew up in, how your parents treated you, how their parents treated them, etc. The article looks at epigenetics and their relationship to psychological/behavioral traits. Using rats as test subjects, rats that grew up under a distant, non-attentive mother had more methylation in genes that are linked to stress control. These pups were more stressed out later in life. Rats that had attentive, loving mothers had less methylation in the brain and had lower stress levels. These studies showed how upbringing is linked to epigenetics. Studies were done looking at rats born from stressed mothers had methylation similar to their mothers and were stressed indicating methyl inheritance. Knowing this, that decisions you make in your younger years will affect your future children, and how you treat your children will affect them greatly, how will you change your life style or habits? Do you think there are ways to counteract any epigenetic changes that have already occurred?

The article also mentioned drugs, trichostatin A, that would remove methyl groups and when give to the stressed pups their stress levels lowered and the amount of methylation was less. A question I asked myself as I read that, and the article ends with, is would you take a drug that could remove methyl groups from your genome? It's in early stage of development and the article was unclear if trichostatin A could target certain areas or if it does a broad sweep. If depression runs in your family would you take a drug that could rid you of it? Or are there other ways, environmentalways, that you can help yourself and help your future children?

Genome vs. Epigenome

Starting at a young age people are told why they look like their siblings and their parents; they inherit genes and a genome sequence at birth that are encoded with the information for eye color, hair color, and other features that make someone similar to their sibling over their best friend. These genes are passed on from generation to generation and shape how a family looks.

A new type of genome has come to light, the epigenome, which explains how cells that all start off the same with the same information become certain cells and explains differences that occur over time in family members based on how they took care of themselves. The epigenome can control which genes are being seen through methylation of the genes or using histones to control the proteins within DNA. Outside factors can cause the epigenome to change. Using identical twins, studies have shown how the epigenome plays a role.

Duke University and cancer centers around the world have looked at twins of all ages and compared their DNA. Studies show that at a younger age the DNA between identical twins is much more similar than the DNA of identical twins later in life. How the twins lived their lives affected their epigenome. Depending on how they ate, drank, worked, if they were stressed, if they lived in good environment, ended up affecting them a molecular level. This can explain why in some sets of twins one can get cancer and the other does not.

The epigenome can instruct genes to turn on or off and ultimately control the cell. This can cause normal cells to become cancerous. The bright light at the end of the tunnel here is that if the epigenome is turning genes off that need to be on to make a happy, healthy cell, through treatment it is possible to turn this genes back on because the epigenome is not permanent. Epigenetic therapy has been used in cancer treatments and has had some success.

Understanding the epigenome can offer solutions to questions and conditions that outlooks used to be grim. The epigenome also takes to a new level what it means to take care of oneself, because you are what you eat, and drink, and how you live.

Thanks to PBS and NOVA for information regarding the studies on epigenetics. For further information see the following link.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/epigenetics.html