Most organisms consist of one single cell at least once in a life time. This is also true for us, where life starts as a single cell, the zygote, which forms the basis for more than 300 different cell types present in our body. Information required to be able to build these cell types, tissues, and complex organs, is located in our DNA, the user manual of life, which is present in every cell of our body. Although this user manual is identical in every cell the instructions are read differently to allow embryonic development to proceed. Differential reading of the DNA is aided by complex “epigenetic” mechanisms that involve modifications of the DNA to allow the cell to remember the decisions made and to maintain its identity. Prior to the start of new life, during the formation of egg and sperm and just after fertilization, all this information needs to be erased to be able to start with a clean slate. Erasure of old, and setting of new epigenetic information is influenced by the environment in which our gametes and embryos mature. Optimal environmental conditions before and during pregnancy are therefore crucial for proper embryonic growth and development and have a clear impact on the health of our children after birth. In this seminar I will introduce the field of epigenetics and will discuss the environmental cues impacting on development prior to and after birth. I will also highlight the technologies that we and others developed to perform high throughput analysis of specific epigenetic modifications, and the impact of these novel techniques in our understanding of these modifications in tissue homeostasis and disease.
17:00 à 18:00
