Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance: yes you can inherit your mother's methylation patterns...

In a report in Science Express, the Ecker lab describes a study utilizing Arabidopsis, following 30 generations of spontaneously generated DNA methylation marks - these "marks" were meiotically stable generating "epialleles".  As epialleles can significantly affect transcription, including the use of alternative promoters, they can have a major effect on phenotype.  But how often does a new epiallele get generated?  According to their study, epialleles are generated more frequently than genetic mutations; given that they are both meiotically and mitotically stable, understanding how these alleles are generated [and maintained] is important - if you have access to Science, click here