several very interesting histone modification (epigenetics) papers

If you have read my previous post Misconcept of epigenetics , you will know that: histone modification is not epigenetics!

However, recently, four papers in Science actually showed that histone modifications actually have a component of inheritance:

Causal role for inheritance of H3K27me3 in maintaining the OFF state of a Drosophila HOX gene

DNA sequence-dependent epigenetic inheritance of gene silencing and histone H3K9 methylation

Propagation of Polycomb-repressed chromatin requires sequence-specific recruitment to DNA

Transgenerational transmission of environmental information in C. elegans

and one paper in Molecular Cell:

SNF2 Family Protein Fft3 Suppresses Nucleosome Turnover to Promote Epigenetic Inheritance and Proper Replication

one more on Nature Genetics:

Stable Polycomb-dependent transgenerational inheritance of chromatin states in Drosophila

Interestingly, all the studies were carried out on model organisms: Drosophila and C.elegans!

Read this blog post if you are into this question: what is epigenetics ?