How does epigenetics influence the course of evolution? | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Tags

Top Highlights

• Epigenetic mechanisms are central to gene regulation, phenotypic plasticity, development and the preservation of genome integrity. Epigenetic mechanisms are often held to make a minor contribution to evolutionary change because epigenetic states are typically erased and reset at every generation, and are therefore, not heritable.

• First, some epigenetic states are transmitted intergenerationally and affect the phenotype of offspring.

• econd, epigenetic variation enhances phenotypic plasticity and phenotypic variance and thus can modulate the effect of natural selection on sequence-based genetic variation.

• Third, given that phenotypic plasticity is central to the adaptability of organisms, epigenetic mechanisms that generate plasticity and acclimation are important to consider in evolutionary theory.

• Fourth, some genes are under selection to be ‘imprinted' identifying the sex of the parent from which they were derived, leading to parent-of-origin-dependent gene expression and effects.

• DNA methylation and other chromatin modifications directly affect the rate of mutation in DNA. Hence epigenetic mechanisms directly affect genome evolution.