Epigenetics is the Performer of the Genome?

Stormie Waters and her fiancé Roland Meadows stopped by my place and invited me to a piano performance in town. I agreed and we rode into town in their wagon. Lisa Myworries was outside the theater, having been stood up by her date, so she joined us.

A lackluster performer started out and we could tell that the piano was just adequate. The main performer, however, managed to make the piano sound like a high-quality instrument. (It reminded me of "The Touch of the Master's Hand.") We had an interesting discussion while dining afterward.

Playing the piano, Pixabay / Holger Schué (music4life)

Stormie had been reading an article about how the epigenome can be likened to playing a piano. Lisa spoke up, "The epigenome is above the genome, that's where the name came from." While the genome is vitally important, it is like a musical instrument. Genomes have faults, so they may not "play" as well as others.

Scientists have learned about DNA and the genome, but also how epigenetics is essential for life. The Master Engineer designed the whole system to work together, expressing some genes but not others, taking cues from the environment, and more. It's amazing how after all this evidence, some folks still insist on believing in the blind, gibbering, puny god of evolution.

Epigenetics has been rising in esteem contemporaneously with the decline of the Central Dogma of genetics (that DNA is the master control in the cell). Just as the pianist gets the applause and not the piano, the epigenome is now being considered the artist behind the instrument. It’s not that the genome has lost any of its aura, but it cannot do anything without a performer.

Frank Gannon wrote a most interesting essay in the journal EMBO Reports, titled, “The piano and the pianist.” Gannon, an Australian who was the former director of a medical research institute in Brisbane, was not writing about the performing arts. He wanted to introduce a new analogy to overcome “the ubiquitous ‘DNA is the blueprint of life’ interpretation of biology,” repeated by some who downplay the elements in the cell that give an organism its dynamic responsiveness to the environment.

To read the rest of this extremely interesting article, find your way to "Epigenetics: Performing the Genome."