Soft inheritance: challenging the modern synthesis

Jablonka, Eva; Lamb, Marion J.

doi:10.1590/s1415-47572008000300001

Cited by 88 publications

(81 citation statements)

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“…The major transitions in evolution (34) seem to have been all crucially influenced by "soft" epigenetic inheritance (35,36). In particular, the role of flexible epigenetic reactivation might be very critical in evolutionary survival of young gene duplicates (18)(19)(20).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CpG island clusters and pro-epigenetic selection for CpGs in protein-coding exons of HOX and other transcription factors

Branciamore¹,

Chen

Riggs

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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CpG dinucleotides contribute to epigenetic mechanisms by being the only site for DNA methylation in mammalian somatic cells. They are also mutation hotspots and ∼5-fold depleted genomewide. We report here a study focused on CpG sites in the coding regions of Hox and other transcription factor genes, comparing methylated genomes of Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, and Danio rerio with nonmethylated genomes of Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans. We analyzed 4-fold degenerate, synonymous codons with the potential for CpG. That is, we studied "silent" changes that do not affect protein products but could damage epigenetic marking. We find that DNA-binding transcription factors and other developmentally relevant genes show, only in methylated genomes, a bimodal distribution of CpG usage. Several genetic code-based tests indicate, again for methylated genomes only, that the frequency of silent CpGs in Hox genes is much greater than expectation. Also informative are NCG-GNN and NCC-GNN codon doublets, for which an unusually high rate of G to C and C to G transversions was observed at the third (silent) position of the first codon. Together these results are interpreted as evidence for strong "pro-epigenetic" selection acting to preserve CpG sites in coding regions of many genes controlling development. We also report that DNA-binding transcription factors and developmentally important genes are dramatically overrepresented in or near clusters of three or more CpG islands, suggesting a possible relationship between evolutionary preservation of CpG dinucleotides in both coding regions and CpG islands.DNA methylation | epigenetics | evolution | gene duplication C pG dinucleotides are of special interest for several reasons. In somatic cells of mammals and other vertebrates, cytosine DNA methylation is almost entirely in CpGs (1, 2) and is an epigenetic mechanism essential for normal development (3, 4). The C in CpGs is highly mutable, with C to T (and complementary G to A) transitions being the most common mutations. The ≈30-fold increased mutation rate for CpG is generally thought to be due to the enzymatic methylation of CpGs, with the formation of 5-methylcytosine ( m C). Deamination of m C then leads to enhanced mutagenesis (5, 6). Most likely for this reason the frequency of CpGs in the mammalian genome is on average ∼5-fold below expectation based on genome-wide nucleotide composition. Importantly, some regions of the genome are not depleted of CpGs and, if >200 bp, are called CpG islands (CGIs) (7,8). As a hallmark feature, CGIs are usually unmethylated. However, some CGIs show tissue-specific methylation, and much evidence indicates that methylated CpG sites ( m CpG) in promoters, enhancers, and other regulatory regions do play an essential role in embryonic development, gene imprinting, and X chromosome inactivation (3, 9, 10). For the above reasons there have been numerous studies of CpGs in promoters (11,12). Over 50% of promoters are in CGIs and there is a strong inverse correlation, especially in c...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CpG island clusters and pro-epigenetic selection for CpGs in protein-coding exons of HOX and other transcription factors

Branciamore¹,

Chen

Riggs

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…O argumento principal é que a seleção natural de variações genéticas deveria ser complementada pela seleção de outros tipos de variação¹ (Jablonka & Lamb, 2005, 2008b. Além disso, na medida em que todas essas fontes de variação sofrem, em algum grau, influência de processos que ocorrem no interior do próprio organismo e de mudanças ambientais (e, portanto, não são completamente randô-micas), seria legítimo dizer que a experiência ambiental do organismo interfere no processo evolutivo, levando alguns autores a defender que o neodarwinismo poderia ser substituído por um neolamarckismo (Gissis & Jablonka, 2011;Jablonka & Lamb, 2005).…”

Section: Elementos Neolamarckistas Do Selecionismo Skinneriano Carlosunclassified

“…O primeiro deles é que o processo evolutivo envolveria múltiplas fontes de variações herdáveis sobre as quais a seleção natural operaria (Jablonka & Lamb, 2005, 2008b. Com isso, essa teoria passa a considerar outros sistemas de herança, além do sistema genético.…”

Section: Elementos Neolamarckistas Do Selecionismo Skinneriano Carlosunclassified

“…Uma vez que a maioria desses sistemas são sensíveis a mudanças ambientais (como temperatura, alimentação, poluentes, interações sociais), a epigenéti-ca sustenta uma concepção de desenvolvimento antité-tica ao pré-formacionismo (Francis, 2011(Francis, /2015Lewontin, 1998Lewontin, /2000. Mesmo não sendo uma disciplina nova, apenas recentemente a epigenética passou a ser considerada um ramo específico da biologia (Jablonka & Lamb, 2002, 2008b, cujo interesse tem crescido nas últimas décadas (Francis, 2011(Francis, /2015. Certamente, Skinner não acompanhou esses avanços, mas, de qualquer modo, não parece haver de antemão inconsistência entre o selecionismo skinneriano e as discussões contemporâ-neas da epigenética, inclusive em termos de seu papel na evolução (Schneider, 2007).…”

Section: Selecionismo Skinneriano E Neolamarckis-mo Contemporâneounclassified

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Elementos Neolamarckistas do Selecionismo Skinneriano

Laurenti¹

2017

Inter. Psicol.

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Neo-Lamarckian elements of Skinnerian selectionism Evolutionary biology has been a stage of debates between neo-Darwinian and neo-Lamarckian theories. Neo-Darwinism explains every evolutionary process in terms of the selection of random genetic variations. Thus, whatever takes place in the individual's life history, in its development and learning, does not interfere in the evolutionary course. Whereas, neo-Lamarckian theory upholds the existence of multiple sources of variation, not always random ones, on which selection operates; it also concedes that development and learning may influence evolution. The goal of this essay is to show that Skinner's model of selection displays features of a neo-Lamarckian evolutionary theory. It concludes that such approximation would help behavior analysis to actively participate in contemporary discussions about evolutionary biology.

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“…Variations in chromatin acetylation and DNA-methylation can influence rates of mutation, transposition, and recombination of DNA. This can provide a bias for change in the DNA sequence (Jablonka & Lamb, 2008). It may provide an explanation for the tendency of the Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) to have biased patterns of DNA nucleotide substitutions (Berglund et al 2009).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Impact of 'Anthropotechnology' on Human Evolution

Blad¹

2010

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology

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From the time that they diverged from their common ancestor, chimpanzees and humans have had a very different evolutionary path. It seems obvious that the appearance of culture and technology has increasingly alienated humans from the path of natural selection that has informed chimpanzee evolution. According to philosopher Peter Sloterdijk any type of technology is bound to have genetic effects. But to what extent do genomic comparisons provide evidence for such an impact of 'anthropotechnology' on our biological evolution?

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Soft inheritance: challenging the modern synthesis

Cited by 88 publications

References 36 publications

CpG island clusters and pro-epigenetic selection for CpGs in protein-coding exons of HOX and other transcription factors

CpG island clusters and pro-epigenetic selection for CpGs in protein-coding exons of HOX and other transcription factors

Elementos Neolamarckistas do Selecionismo Skinneriano

The Impact of 'Anthropotechnology' on Human Evolution

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