Scientists at the
Babraham Institutein Cambridge are unlocking the inner workings of the epigenome, which could have profound effects on both human and animal health.
DNA contains all the instructions that make you who you are, but in the past two decades new “hidden influences”, the epigenome, have been discovered.
Put simply, events like cancer or famine, even several generations back, may be heritable modifications in gene function, occurring without a change in the sequence of the DNA.
As Dr Wolf Reik explains to Central Lobby, research into epigenetics is changing how we think about inheritance.
“It came out of observations that people made, particularly in development and inheritance in both the mammalian and animal world, that would not be explained at the time just by DNA.
“In the last 10 years advances in molecular biology have revealed something else on top of genetics that explains how we develop and behave, and how we get diseases or live healthily.”
Dr Reik describes the epigenetics as “another layer of information that explains part of the make up of your body”.
“We can catalogue it like with a genome but it is much more complex, there are at least 200 epigenomes.
“They contain important proprieties for human health and disease.
“It can provide a read-out of environment and nutrition, for example, potentially across a number of generations.
“Nutrition in the womb can have an important effect on the epigenetic make up of that baby.”
Dr Reik says certain pre-dispositions to medical conditions could well be “transmitted” to the future generations via epigenes.
“There are mammalian and non-animal models and both of them show this,” he explains.
In humans, obesity and diabetes and the epigenetic defects found in many cancers are the focus of research.
Dr Reik’s work at
Babraham Institute, receives research funding from BIS.
“This kind of thinking is being applied to all the major human diseases, and because it is only a small minority where you have complete genetic explanations, so you are looking for more explanations,” he says.
“Even if there is a genetic causation known, it can only explain say 25% of the cases, and we have not discovered the other causations.
“More and more scientists sense that there is only so much that is genetically determined in these diseases such as cancer or diabetes.”
Dr Reik says that not only can scientists now establish all of these epigenomes in different cell types, but you can “wipe” the cells clean of them.
“There is a machinery of removing all this information from the genome.
“The ‘erasure’ mechanism of reprogramming to a blank canvas, that is important to create ‘clean’ embryonic stem cells.”
In his own research at the
Babraham Institutehe has discovered “a signalling principle”.
“The cell receives signals from the outside world and you can affect that with small molecule inhibitors, where we can actually induce the erasure process at will and can manipulate epigenomes. This has potential medical applications.”
Dr Reik and others are reprogramming epigenetic modifications in the genome during key stages in germ cells and embryos.
Epigenetic drugs are already being tested in clinical trials with “good effects” on patients with a “particularly aggressive” form of leukaemia.
“Many pharmaceutical companies are building up their epigenetic research, and the UK is a world leader in the field," says Dr Reik.
The
Babraham Institute’s work on epigenetics will be being presented at the Cheltenham science festival this weekend.
Their work is supported by among others, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), a UK Research Council and non-departmental public body.
BBRSC invests in research and training, with the aim of furthering scientific knowledge, promoting economic growth, wealth and job creation and improving quality of life in the UK and beyond.
Dr Patrick Middleton, Head of Engagement, tells Central Lobby that BBRSC gets its funding from the science budget, which is controlled by BIS.
“It is around £500m per annum for research and training,” he explains.
“The research covers everything from food security to how wheat grows, to the epigenetic research that Dr Reik does in humans.
“The funding is primarily given out through peer review, researchers will submit funding applications to BBRSC and then those are reviewed by a panel of their peers, and the ones that are most excellent are selected.”
This funding from government helps ensure the UK remains one of the leading nations in scientific research.
Dr Middleton said bioscience will be central to providing solutions to major challenges, such as feeding nine billion people sustainably by 2050; developing renewable low carbon sources of energy and transport fuels, and staying healthier for longer as life spans increase and society ages.