Epigenetic Modification in Human Thyroid Cancer Essay

Epigenetic Modification in Human Thyroid Cancer - Essay Example Neo-Darwinism, has been stretched to incorporate epigenetics from an evolutionary perspective and even from a Non-Lamarckian viewpoint, epigenetics does have an important role in evolution. Epigenetic changes are heritable in nature and in some cases large unexplained heritance of certain characters does take place yet this is important to maintain both genotypic and phenotypic variability. Epigenetic modifications are extremely crucial to maintain human body functions and improper functioning of these modifications can cause adverse health effects and lead to major diseases of the human body. Epigenetic events include modifications of the histone proteins and leads to regulation of chromatin structure and subsequently lead to alteration of the gene function. Researchers have identified deficiency of biotin as one of the major regulatory factors in modifying the chromatin structure. In fact, epigenetics involves the transgenerational transmittance of phenotypic characters which previously solely attributed to genetics. Transgeneration epigenetics refers to the inheritance of information from one organism to another. The transfer of certain characters for example maternal care have been studied. According to a study conducted by Champagne in 2008, epigenetic alterations helps in transferring of traits such as maternal care form the mother to the female off-spring, post-partum. Such transfers have mostly been attributed to epigenetics change sin neuronal and endocrine processes on the body.