偶看新闻杏花楼黄河路店:童年生长环境或将在DNA中留下永久印记
来源：百度文库 编辑：偶看新闻 时间：2024/04/30 13:27:17
这里我要改用著名遗传学家Snoop Dogg 曾说过的一句话：不管人生到达何处，那些成长中周遭的事物都将伴其一生。无论你到达何处，你的出身都无法改变（我认为Dogg教授其实是回忆起那首《老乡》中关于老同志的一句歌词——我知道，你们一定不会认同这个评论）。如今，在《国际流行性病学杂志》上刊登的一项发现证明，他也许是对的：无论之后的生存状况变成何样，早期的经济条件及生活水平也许确会改变DNA，并且携带终生。
In some ways, we already knew that. Some adult diseases--type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, etc.--have been linked to socio-economic disadvantages in early life. But we don’t really know why or how. Researchers in Canada and the UK may have just found the key.
从某些角度来讲，就此，我们早已知道。某些成人疾病，比如2型糖尿病、冠心病等，都和早期的经济条件不利有关。但我们并不知道原因和过程，而加拿大和英国的研究者们，也许刚好找到了问题的关键。
Their sample size is admittedly small, but what they found was significant. In 40 research patients in the UK that are participating in an ongoing study that has documented many aspects of their lives, researchers looked at differences in gene methylation. Methylation is an epigenetic modification to one’s DNA that changes a gene’s activity, generally reducing that activity within the genome. Various factors can influence methylation, including environmental conditions.
不可否认，他们的样本规模的确很小，但是他们的发现却是巨大的。英国的40名患者参加了一项持续研究，在这项研究中，他们人生中的很多方面都被记录下来，研究者们观察了他们基因甲基化的差异。甲基化作用是对DNA的后天修改，并改变基因活动，通常是在基因组内减少这个活动。很多因素都可以影响甲基化，包括环境条件。
In their sample, the researchers looked at DNA taken from the subjects at age 45. They chose subjects that had come from either very high or very low standards of living, and they looked at differences in DNA methylation across some 20,000 genes. They found that 1,252 methylation differences were associated with socio-economic circumstances in early life while just 545 were associated with socio-economic circumstances in adulthood, suggesting that where you come from really does make an impact on the very fiber of your biological being.
在样本中，研究者们从年龄45岁的对象中获取DNA。他们选择的对象既有生活水平非常高的也有非常低的，并且，他们覆盖了其中的20000个基因来观察DNA甲基化的差异。他们发现，其中1252个甲基化差异和早期的经济条件相关，而只有545个与成年时期的经济条件相关，这说明，你的出身的确会对你身体的每个机能造成巨大的影响。
Moreover, the methylation patterns were clustered together in large swaths of DNA, suggesting an epigenetic pattern linked to humans’ early environments. That’s actually good news. If we know some diseases are linked to a person’t early upbringing, and we can see where there are changes happening in the DNA during early life, then we can narrow the window on where in the genome things like coronary heart disease and diabetes take root. Future research could peg where certain methylation differences are associated with specific diseases, then target those areas with drugs or other treatments.
而且，甲基化的模式在DNA长链中被聚集到一起，显示了与早期环境相关的后天模式。这实在是个好消息。如果我们知道某些疾病和早期的抚养方式有关，并且我们可以看到在DNA中，这些改变发生的位置，我们便可以缩小范围，找出像冠心病和糖尿病这类疾病究竟在基因组的什么地方生根。未来可以深入研究某种甲基化差异和具体疾病的关系，然后针对那些区域用药治疗。