Main description:

This is the first comprehensive, authoritative, and easy-to-understand introduction to modern epigenetics. Authored by two active researchers in the field, it introduces key concepts one step at a time, enabling students at all levels to benefit from it. The authors begin by presenting a historical overview that places epigenetics in context, and makes it clear that the field is not (as some presume) completely new. Next, they introduce and explain key epigenetic mechanisms, and discuss the roles these mechanisms may play in inheritance, organism development, health and disease, behavior, evolution, ecology, and the interaction of individual organisms with their environments. Coverage includes: non-coding RNAs in each kingdom; allelic interactions; CRYSPR; gene silencing; epigenetics of germline and epigenetic memory; epigenetic regulation of genome stability and plant stress response; and much more. The authors conclude by offering significant new insights into how knowledge of epigenetics and epigenomics may promote the development of technologies and solutions in areas ranging from behavioral neuroscience to cancer treatment, toxicology to the development of hardier crops.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Historical Perspective 1
Chapter 2 Chromatin Dynamics and Chromatin Remodeling in Animals 19
Chapter 3 Chromatin Dynamics and Chromatin Remodeling in Plants 49
Chapter 4 DNA Methylation as Epigenetic Mechanism 75
Chapter 5 Histone Modifications and Their Role in Epigenetic Regulation 119
Chapter 6 Realm of Non-Coding RNAs--From Bacteria to Human 147
Chapter 7 Non-Coding RNAs Involved in Epigenetic Processes--A General Overview 177
Chapter 8 Non-Coding RNAs Across the Kingdoms--Bacteria and Archaea 203
Chapter 9 Non-Coding RNAs Across the Kingdoms--Protista and Fungi 223
Chapter 10 Non-Coding RNAs Across the Kingdoms--Animals 267
Chapter 11 Non-Coding RNAs Across the Kingdoms--Plants 297
Chapter 12 Non-Coding RNAs--Comparison of Biogenesis in Plants and Animals 327
Chapter 13 Paramutation, Transactivation, Transvection, and Cosuppression--Silencing of Homologous Sequences 343
Chapter 14 Bacterial Adaptive Immunity--Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) 385
Chapter 15 Gene Silencing--Ancient Immune Response and a Versatile Mechanism of Control over the Fate of Foreign Nucleic Acids 409
Chapter 16 Epigenetics of Germline and Epigenetic Memory 435
Chapter 17 Epigenetics of Health and Disease--Cancer 465
Chapter 18 Epigenetics of Health and Disease--Behavioral Neuroscience 499
Chapter 19 Epigenetics of Health and Disease--Diet and Toxicology, Environmental Exposures 523
Chapter 20 Epigenetics and Technology--Hairpin-Based Antisensing 555
Index 577