Bob Yirka is a research scientist at Phys.org.
A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, working with a colleague from Temple University, have found that genes are involved in inherited epigenetic changes.
Their study was published in the journal Science Advances.
People can inherit trait from their parents that aren't due to genetics, but instead are passed down through epigenetics. Environmental factors are the reason for such instances. In this new effort, the researchers found that there may be other ways it can happen, such as via a process called transcriptional adaptation, in which epigenetic changes might be directed due to a parent's genes.
The researchers suspected that a change in a parent's expression of genes could lead to non-genetic changes in offspring.
They started with a single copy of the act-5 gene and then branched out to include functional copies. Research shows that act-5 pushes the expression of the act 3 gene. To make it easier to see in tests, the researchers changed the genes. Act 3 is normally expressed in the pharynx, so the researchers decided to study it. The act-5 gene's function was altered when it was found.
The test showed that the intestines of the offspring were also red, despite having no act-5 genes. The red intestinal trait could last for up to six generations, according to the researchers. The same results were found when the researchers repeated the experiment with zebrafish to see if the same results could be found with vertebrates.
According to the researchers, transcriptome traits can come from both the parents' and non-parent's genes.
Zhen Jiang and her co-authors wrote about the influence of parental genes on wild- type offspring. There is a book titled "Sci Adv.abj2029."
Journal information: Science Advances
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