Brain epigenome changes from birth to adolescence

Published in Science

2013-07-05

(Press-News.org) Experience of parents with their children and teachers with their students demonstrate how kids change their behaviours and knowledge from infancy to adolescence. Until now, little was known of the causes that could lead to these changes.

Today, an article published in Science in collaboration with the group of Manel Esteller, Director of Epigenetics and Cancer Biology Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), ICREA researcher and Professor of Genetics at the University of Barcelona, gives us an important clue to understanding this process.

Researchers have discovered that people's frontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for the conduct and the acquisition of new information) experiences a significant change from birth to the end of adolescence. The epigenome is transformed.

The study analyzes the epigenome of newborns, teenagers aged 16, and adults aged 25 and 50 in the United States and in Catalonia (Spain).

Epigenome

Epigenome is the set of chemical signals responsible for turning on or off genes in our DNA. The discovery published in Science shows that one of these epigenetic signals, methylation of genetic material, is progressively increased until the end of adolescence and entry into adulthood.

"The results of the study show that DNA methylation has a key role in shaping the communication spaces between neurons (synapses)", explains Esteller. "The brain is divided into white matter (glial) and gray matter (neurons) with several cell types with different functions. DNA methylation patterns distinguish genes with cell-type specific activity. Even in the gray matter, there are cell subtypes such as pyramidal neurons and GABA neurotransmitter producers that have specific subpatterns of DNA methylation."

"In addition, DNA methylation of neurons is different from the rest of the cells in our body. If normal is called 5-mCG, this, in the bran, is called 5-MCH: this is like putting an open or closed accent to a word, in this case a gene to change its meaning" explains Esteller.

This finding could have a profound importance in the knowledge of brain's biology because besides explaining the plasticity of this organ when learning and living experiences, it could be decisive to understand the causes of altered behaviours and psychiatric diseases. Now, we must investigate whether minor alterations in the program of DNA methylation during early postnatal development could be associated to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism or schizophrenia.

INFORMATION:

About Us

The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) is a research center created in 2004 and it is participated by the Bellvitge University Hospital, the Catalan Institute of Health, the Catalan Institute of Oncology, and the University of Barcelona. IDIBELL is located at Biopol'H at L'Hospitalet de Llobregat and is member of the Health Universtitat de Barcelona Campus.

Article reference

Lister R, Mukame EA, Nery JR, Urich M, Puddifoot CA, Johnson N, Lucero J, Huang N, Zaman S, Schultz MD, Tonti-Filippini J, Yu M, Heyn H, Hu S, Wu JC, Rao A, Esteller M, He C, Haghighi FG, Sejnowski TJ, Behrens MM, Ecker JR. Dynamic epigenomic reconfiguration during mammalian brain development. Science, July 4th, 2013.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Unique epigenomic code identified during human brain development

2013-07-05

LA JOLLA, CA – Changes in the epigenome, including chemical modifications of DNA, can act as an extra layer of information in the genome, and are thought to play a role in learning and memory, as well as in age-related cognitive decline. The results of a new study by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies show that the landscape of DNA methylation, a particular type of epigenomic modification, is highly dynamic in brain cells during the transition from birth to adulthood, helping to understand how information in the genomes of cells in the brain is controlled ...

Feeding galaxy caught in distant searchlight by international research team

2013-07-05

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — An international group of astronomers that includes UC Santa Barbara astrophysicist Crystal Martin and former UCSB postdoctoral researcher Nicolas Bouché has spotted a distant galaxy hungrily snacking on nearby gas. The gas is seen to fall inward toward the galaxy, creating a flow that both fuels star formation and drives the galaxy's rotation. This is the best direct observational evidence so far supporting the theory that galaxies pull in and devour nearby material in order to grow and form stars. The results will appear in the July 5 issue of ...

Molecular chains hypersensitive to magnetic fields

2013-07-05

Researchers of MESA+, the research institute for nanotechnology of the University of Twente, in cooperation with researchers of the University of Strasbourg and Eindhoven University of Technology, are the first to successfully create perfect one-dimensional molecular wires of which the electrical conductivity can almost entirely be suppressed by a weak magnetic field at room temperature. The underlying mechanism is possibly closely related to the biological compass used by some migratory birds to find their bearings in the geomagnetic field. This spectacular discovery may ...

Spider webs more effective at ensnaring charged insects

2013-07-04

Flapping insects build up an electrical charge that may make them more easily snared by spider webs, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists. The positive charge on an insect such as a bee or fly attracts the web, which is normally negatively or neutrally charged, increasing the chances that an insect flying by will contact and stick to the web, said UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Victor Manuel Ortega-Jimenez. He also suspects that light flexible spider silk, the kind used for make the spirals on top of the stiffer silk that forms ...

Does being a bookworm boost your brainpower in old age?

2013-07-04

MINNEAPOLIS – New research suggests that reading books, writing and participating in brain-stimulating activities at any age may preserve memory. The study is published in the July 3, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "Our study suggests that exercising your brain by taking part in activities such as these across a person's lifetime, from childhood through old age, is important for brain health in old age," said study author Robert S. Wilson, PhD, with Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. For the study, ...

Study of mitochondrial DNA ties ancient remains to living descendants

2013-07-04

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers report that they have found a direct genetic link between the remains of Native Americans who lived thousands of years ago and their living descendants. The team used mitochondrial DNA, which children inherit only from their mothers, to track three maternal lineages from ancient times to the present. The findings are reported in the journal PLOS ONE. The researchers compared the complete mitochondrial genomes of four ancient and three living individuals from the north coast of British Columbia, Canada. This region is home to the indigenous ...

Urine test can diagnose, predict kidney transplant rejection

2013-07-04

Analysis of three biomarkers in the urine of kidney transplant recipients can diagnose -- and even predict -- transplant rejection, according to results from a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. This test for biomarkers -- molecules that indicate the effect or progress of a disease -- offers an accurate, noninvasive alternative to the standard kidney biopsy, in which doctors remove a small piece of kidney tissue to look for rejection-associated damage. The findings appear ...

Violent video games don't always reduce subsequent helpfulness

2013-07-04

Violent or antisocial video games like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto do not reliably reduce helpful behaviors in players shortly after playing, according to research published July 3 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Morgan Tear and Mark Nielsen from the University of Queensland, Australia. Participants in the research played one of four video games for 20 minutes. At the end of the test, a researcher pretended to drop some pens and assessed how many players helped pick them up. Regardless of the game played, only about 40-60% of participants helped pick up pens ...

Tweet timing tells bots, people and companies apart

2013-07-04

Tweet timing can differentiate individual, corporate and bot-controlled Twitter accounts independent of the language or content of a tweet, according to research published July 3 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Aldo Faisal and Gabriela Tavares from Imperial College London, UK. The researchers studied over 160,000 tweets from personal accounts held by individuals, 'managed' accounts belonging to large, well-known corporations and 'bot-controlled' accounts chosen from online lists of Twitter bots. Periods of high or low Twitter activity and the time between successive ...

Genetic factors shaping salamander tails determine regeneration pace

2013-07-04

Salamanders' capacity to regrow lost limbs may seem infinite when compared with that of humans, but even amongst salamanders, some species regenerate body parts very slowly, while others lose this capacity as they age. Now, researchers have found that salamanders' capacity to regrow a cut tail depends on several small regions of DNA in their genome that impact how wide the tail grows. The results are published July 3 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Randal Voss and colleagues from the University of Kentucky. In the study, approximately 66-68% of the differences ...

Tufts University School of Medicine, ATI Physical Therapy launch first-of-its-kind collaboration to make physical therapy education and career advancement more accessible and affordable

Could lycopene—a plant extract—be an effective antidepressant?

[Press-News.org] Brain epigenome changes from birth to adolescence
Published in Science

Brain epigenome changes from birth to adolescence

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: