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Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms—An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics

Organisms adapt to different environments by selection of the most suitable phenotypes from the standing genetic variation or by phenotypic plasticity, the ability of single genotypes to produce different phenotypes in different environments. Because of near genetic identity, asexually reproducing p...

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Autor principal: Vogt, Günter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9844400/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36648862
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/epigenomes7010001
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author Vogt, Günter
author_facet Vogt, Günter
author_sort Vogt, Günter
collection PubMed
description Organisms adapt to different environments by selection of the most suitable phenotypes from the standing genetic variation or by phenotypic plasticity, the ability of single genotypes to produce different phenotypes in different environments. Because of near genetic identity, asexually reproducing populations are particularly suitable for the investigation of the potential and molecular underpinning of the latter alternative in depth. Recent analyses on the whole-genome scale of differently adapted clonal animals and plants demonstrated that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation, histone modifications and non-coding RNAs are among the molecular pathways supporting phenotypic plasticity and that epigenetic variation is used to stably adapt to different environments. Case studies revealed habitat-specific epigenetic fingerprints that were maintained over subsequent years pointing at the existence of epigenetic ecotypes. Environmentally induced epimutations and corresponding gene expression changes provide an ideal means for fast and directional adaptation to changing or new conditions, because they can synchronously alter phenotypes in many population members. Because microorganisms inclusive of human pathogens also exploit epigenetically mediated phenotypic variation for environmental adaptation, this phenomenon is considered a universal biological principle. The production of different phenotypes from the same DNA sequence in response to environmental cues by epigenetic mechanisms also provides a mechanistic explanation for the “general-purpose genotype hypothesis” and the “genetic paradox of invasions”.
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spelling pubmed-98444002023-01-18 Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms—An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics Vogt, Günter Epigenomes Review Organisms adapt to different environments by selection of the most suitable phenotypes from the standing genetic variation or by phenotypic plasticity, the ability of single genotypes to produce different phenotypes in different environments. Because of near genetic identity, asexually reproducing populations are particularly suitable for the investigation of the potential and molecular underpinning of the latter alternative in depth. Recent analyses on the whole-genome scale of differently adapted clonal animals and plants demonstrated that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation, histone modifications and non-coding RNAs are among the molecular pathways supporting phenotypic plasticity and that epigenetic variation is used to stably adapt to different environments. Case studies revealed habitat-specific epigenetic fingerprints that were maintained over subsequent years pointing at the existence of epigenetic ecotypes. Environmentally induced epimutations and corresponding gene expression changes provide an ideal means for fast and directional adaptation to changing or new conditions, because they can synchronously alter phenotypes in many population members. Because microorganisms inclusive of human pathogens also exploit epigenetically mediated phenotypic variation for environmental adaptation, this phenomenon is considered a universal biological principle. The production of different phenotypes from the same DNA sequence in response to environmental cues by epigenetic mechanisms also provides a mechanistic explanation for the “general-purpose genotype hypothesis” and the “genetic paradox of invasions”. MDPI 2022-12-26 /pmc/articles/PMC9844400/ /pubmed/36648862 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/epigenomes7010001 Text en © 2022 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Vogt, Günter
Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms—An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics
title Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms—An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics
title_full Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms—An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics
title_fullStr Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms—An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics
title_full_unstemmed Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms—An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics
title_short Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms—An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics
title_sort environmental adaptation of genetically uniform organisms with the help of epigenetic mechanisms—an insightful perspective on ecoepigenetics
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9844400/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36648862
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/epigenomes7010001
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