Answer the following questions.
1. Why don’t identical twins look or act the same or always get the same diseases?
2. How do identical twins form?
3. How are the mice similar? How are they different?
4. How does the binding of chemicals to histones alter gene expression?
5. What is the epigenome?
6. How does the epigenome help tissues differentiate into different tissue types or organ systems?
7. Can your epigenome change? When?
8. How does Jirtle (the researcher) affect the epigenome of the mice to get skinny brown mice?
9. How can this affect humans?
10. What was the point of the Spanish twin study?
11. What lab tool tells you there researchers are doing science?
12. Which sets of twins are more similar and which are more different? Why is this so?
13. What is the idea of epigenetic therapy?
14. What is the deal with rainbow the calico cat and her clone? Why are they different?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/epigenetic-mice.html
Answer the following questions.
1. How are the mice related?
2. According to the video how many genes are there? What is the point of the epigenome?
3. How is the agouti gene different between the sister mice?
4. What is the chemical that the mice were exposed to? Are you ever exposed to this chemical?
5. In what percentage of the 400 people studied, did the CDC find BPA?
6. What happened to the pregnant mice that were exposed to BPA?
7. How were the negative effects of BPA exposure counteracted?

The Epigenome at a Glance: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/intro/
Answer the following questions.
1. What is DNA wrapped around?
2. Structurally, what is the epigenome?
3. How does the epigenome function differently for active vs inactive genes?
4. What kinds of factors can influence the epigenome?
Gene Control
Signals from the outside world can work through the epigenome to change a cell's gene expression.
In the activity below, you act as the signal. As you turn the control knob, epigenetic tags come and go to change the shape of the gene. Notice what happens to the mRNA and protein levels when you manipulate the epigenetic tags on the gene. Gene, mRNA and protein production are linked. They change together.
1.
What happens to the DNA, RNA and protein when the dial is turned “up?”
Could You Really Do This?
2. What do you think?
3. Has this been done before?
4. How does gene control affect cancer?
Lick Your Rats
Some mother rats spend a lot of time licking, grooming and nursing their pups. Others seem to ignore their pups. Highly nurtured rat pups tend to grow up to be calm adults, while rat pups who receive little nurturing tend to grow up to be anxious.
It turns out that the difference between a calm and an anxious rat is not genetic - it's epigenetic. The nurturing behavior of a mother rat during the first week of life shapes her pups' epigenomes. And the epigenetic pattern that mom establishes tends to stay put, even after the pups become adults.
1. How can the expression of the GR gene be altered?
2. What happens (genetically and behaviorally) to the baby rat when it is licked a lot?
3. What happens (same as above) to the baby rat when it wasn’t licked very much?
4. How does nuturing affect the DNA?
5. How is the brain of licked vs not licked rats affected by the process?

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/rats/szyf.mp4
1. How many genes were found to be affected by the amount of nurturing by the mother?
2. What are the possible ways to determine if a rat was licked?
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/twins/
1. When are epigenetic tags “erased?”
2. What is an imprinted genes?
3. Do identical twins have the same epigenome?
4. What is an environmental factor that can have an affect on the epigenom?
5. In the table on the right, which traits do you think have more of a genetic component and which traits are more likely to have an epigenetic component?
6. How does the difference between how identical twins and fraternal twins point to the possibility of in utero events affecting the epigenome?
7. How can information from this table help people who are not twins?
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/nutrition/
1. Why is nutrition studied for its affects on the epigenome?
2. What kinds of foods or nutrients can affect your epigenome?
3. According to this website, how important is the food your mother eats during pregnancy and what you are fed during infancy as it affects your epigenome?
4. Can you father have an impact on your epigenome? What unusual finding does the website say regarding paternal epigenomic affects?
5. How does a bees food affect its development?
6. What is nutrigenomics?
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/brain/
What do you think about this?