ELi5: What is Genetic Imprinting? How is it different of other Chromosomal and Genetic errors like Addition or Deletion?

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I’ve been trying to wrapped around it and read multiple books but nowhere I got satisfactory explanation.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Literally little tags are added on to the DNA molecule like those sticky tabs added to notebook pages to tell you where to read

These are able to control the level of gene expression by affecting protein behaviour. They can ‘silence’ genes by suppressing expression, for instance.

Often regarding suppressing gene activity, the ‘tags’ are methyl groups that become attached to specific areas of the DNA. There are other types of tags for different things too.

These ‘epigenetic’ tags do not change your DNA sequence, that’s what makes it different from addition and deletion, which affect sequence. There is no affect on your DNA code, it only affects how the code is expressed. And a very large portion of the tags are removed in the process of producing sperm/egg, so they are not necessarily inhereted.

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