6 replies to this topic

[The Immortalist]

How can you determine what features of your body are a result of genetics or a result of the environment, nutrition (or lack of), exposure to potential toxins in which you grew up in from zygote to adulthood?

For example is a cleft palate deformity genetic or is it the mothers fault?

[ymc]

It depends on the trait. It can have both genetic factor and environmental factor. As to what extent, heritability studies are employed to determine which side contribute more. For example, autism is found to have a heritability of 80%. Meaning 80% genetics and 20% enviroment.

The following paper says cleft palate has a heritability of 90%

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/21423016

[The Immortalist]

It depends on the trait. It can have both genetic factor and environmental factor. As to what extent, heritability studies are employed to determine which side contribute more. For example, autism is found to have a heritability of 80%. Meaning 80% genetics and 20% enviroment.

The following paper says cleft palate has a heritability of 90%

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/21423016

What about things like facial features? I have some facial features that absolutely no one in my family has so that must be environmental right?

[Absent]

Epigenetics mate. The long-term alteration/change in gene expression through environmental influence.



It's never as simple as strictly environment, or genes, because each of them influences the other. Gene expression can be a complicated thing.

I don't mean to cause any bad emotions, but don't rule out the idea that you could be adopted or an illegitimate child born out of infedelity.... or there's always the chance of taking on repressed genes.... though if this was the case you could likely see them somewhere in your family tree. Truth is you can never really know, as current technology only permits so much.

[The Immortalist]

Epigenetics mate. The long-term alteration/change in gene expression through environmental influence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp1bZEUgqVI

It's never as simple as strictly environment, or genes, because each of them influences the other. Gene expression can be a complicated thing.

I don't mean to cause any bad emotions, but don't rule out the idea that you could be adopted or an illegitimate child born out of infedelity.... or there's always the chance of taking on repressed genes.... though if this was the case you could likely see them somewhere in your family tree. Truth is you can never really know, as current technology only permits so much.

Oh ok I get it now. So a person from a family could have very different facial features to the rest of how the different family members in the present and past looked due to different expressions in genes contributing to bone/muscle/skin/cartilage formation even while having the exact same alleles?

How do we purposely change gene expression? Even if we could change gene expression wouldn't most of the changes we could make to gene expression be useless on an adult? That's not to say our bodies can't change as adults but for the most part all of the important changes that could be made would only be useful if done at the zygote level right?

Edited by The Immortalist, 22 May 2013 - 04:27 PM.

[Absent]

Oh ok I get it now. So a person from a family could have very different facial features to the rest of how the different family members in the present and past looked due to different expressions in genes contributing to bone/muscle/skin/cartilage formation even while having the exact same alleles?

How do we purposely change gene expression? Even if we could change gene expression wouldn't most of the changes we could make to gene expression be useless on an adult? That's not to say our bodies can't change as adults but for the most part all of the important changes that could be made would only be useful if done at the zygote level right?

The trouble is epigenetics is still somewhat of a new field.... we don't really know how to perfectly influence genes.... there are billions if not trillions of possible things that may or may not influence gene expression. For instance it's well known stress will effect gene expression, as well as studying, meditation, etc.... These gene expression changes can be passed onto your offspring too, so if you lived a healthy life, your offspring may benefit from having a healthier default gene expression, so to speak.

Gene expression can be changed all throughout life. It is not impossible to change them as an adult, but there is more resistance in the process because of everything that is already built up in your brain.... as a child you start off with a cleanish slate so to speak.

I know it's not really much of an answer to your question, because this overall is a new field, but if you are concerned about your blood-line you could consider seeing a geneticist or someone of that nature.

[ymc]

It depends on the trait. It can have both genetic factor and environmental factor. As to what extent, heritability studies are employed to determine which side contribute more. For example, autism is found to have a heritability of 80%. Meaning 80% genetics and 20% enviroment.

The following paper says cleft palate has a heritability of 90%

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/21423016

What about things like facial features? I have some facial features that absolutely no one in my family has so that must be environmental right?

Facial features are usually complicated traits that involve multiple genes. The inheritance of such feature can be hard to predict or find a pattern unless you sequence the DNA of everyone in your family.

Epigenetics mate. The long-term alteration/change in gene expression through environmental influence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp1bZEUgqVI

It's never as simple as strictly environment, or genes, because each of them influences the other. Gene expression can be a complicated thing.

I don't mean to cause any bad emotions, but don't rule out the idea that you could be adopted or an illegitimate child born out of infedelity.... or there's always the chance of taking on repressed genes.... though if this was the case you could likely see them somewhere in your family tree. Truth is you can never really know, as current technology only permits so much.

Oh ok I get it now. So a person from a family could have very different facial features to the rest of how the different family members in the present and past looked due to different expressions in genes contributing to bone/muscle/skin/cartilage formation even while having the exact same alleles?

How do we purposely change gene expression? Even if we could change gene expression wouldn't most of the changes we could make to gene expression be useless on an adult? That's not to say our bodies can't change as adults but for the most part all of the important changes that could be made would only be useful if done at the zygote level right?

Even though each cell would roughly have the same DNA, gene expression is cell type specific. That means for a muscle cell, actin can be expressed but the same actin won't be expressed in white blood cell for example.