Passing On Stress
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 - 03:50
in Biology & Nature
Parental stress seems to influence the progeny of organisms. For example, studies have shown that, if mice are stressed, their offspring will show signs of anxiety, even if they receive the usual levels of maternal care. Such epigenetic effects do not alter the DNA sequence, but leave genetic ‘marks’ on genes that influence how active these are. There are some ideas that health issues such as obesity or mental illness could be the result of stress on the parents.But the changes in the inherited DNA that might give rise to these effects have proved difficult to identify. Now, research on fruit flies appears to have elucidated a mechanism that allows the effects of stress to be passed on without having to alter genes.read more
