Thread: Epigenetics
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Old 01-19-2010, 06:33 PM   #5
Happy Monkey
I think this line's mostly filler.
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC
Posts: 13,575
Everything else. Everything in a zygote cell is from the sperm or the egg, and it all self-replicates. DNA creates the protein building blocks, but there is all sorts of cellular machinery that uses them to make more cells. Any of it could be affected by a drug or other stimulus. Most of those [disruptive to cell reproduction] effects would probably kill the cell, and most of the rest would probably resume normal operation in the absence of the stimulus, but some could permanently change the operation.

I have a vague memory of a somewhat recent story about prions (or something similar) that did this. Prions can change the output of DNA without affecting the DNA, by changing the way proteins fold.
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