Hacker News Reader

Comment by BearsAreCool | Hacker News Reader

This is new knowledge to me, where do I read about this?

Every biology, molecular biology, and genetics textbook made for freshmen and sophomore bio majors. You can't pick a wrong one - this has been core material for at least two decades.

Really? So like, say, Campbell Biology? That's what I've seen used in high school and colleges, and I don't recall any mention of epigenetics in it. (At least in the 7th edition one, published 2004... not sure how much it's changed since.)

So I don’t have a copy of Campbell’s underhand, but a quick google search for its table of contents brought up the ToC for 7e.

Chapter 9, pg 161 covers epigenetics, p 162 gene linkages, Ch11 covers gene methylation.

I’d find additional specific examples, but that’s all that’s laid out explicitly in the table of contents.

Confused, are we looking at the same edition? I don't see an explicit mention in the ToC [1], and Chapter 9 is "Cellular Respiration: Harvesting Chemical Energy"... are you saying that's where they mention epigenetics?

[1] https://www.pearson.ch/HigherEducation/BenjaminCummings/EAN/...

This is the ToC I found:

https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/preface/0/1/3/4/01348...

Yeah you're looking at the wrong book. That's copyrighted 2019, not 2004. And not sure what "7e" means (doesn't seem to be the same as "7th edition") but it's Campbell Essential Biology, not Campbell Biology.

So, the edition you’re linking, you’ll likely find epigenetics in ch21, genetic basis of development. That’s usually where the older books discussed methylation and acetylation.

Yeah, I've been trying to dig something up. Here's all there is in the 8th edition -- like just 3 sentences: https://books.google.com/books?id=5nZlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA358&lpg=...

They didn’t generally refer to it explicitly as epigenetics - they tended to cover the exact mechanisms. Check out pg 358’s dedicated subsection to methylation, for example. The word epigenetics won’t be mentioned, but it’s one of the classic epigenetic mechanisms.

I'm not sure if I understand that section correctly, but it sounds like it's talking not about inheritance across organisms, but about replication within an organism?

Methylation and acetylation of sex chromosomes is inherited. In somatic tissues it affects downstream development; in gonads, it becomes a heritable trait.

https://www.whatisepigenetics.com/what-is-epigenetics/

Is there reliable evidence that eating certain foods improves health through epigenetic pathways, as that site claims, or is that just nutrition woo?

woo

Reply on news.ycombinator.com