Caenorhabditis elegansFLICKR, SNICKCLUNK
How long we live may be a function not only of our genetics and the environment, but of our ancestors’ epigenetics as well, a study published today (October 19) in Nature suggests. The researchers found that epigenetic modifications that extended lifespan in worms can be passed down across multiple generations.
Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance has been reported for a variety of traits across a number of species—the color of flowers in plants, eye color in Drosophila, and fur color in mice are all known to be epigenetically inherited, for example. But “this is the first time this has been linked to longevity,” said molecular geneticist William Kelly, who researches chromatin organization and germline maintenance at Emory University but who was not involved in the study.
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