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To: GodGunsGuts
Who said anything about directed mutation? Who is directing it? Directing it where?

Related how? I understand if you do not really comprehend the article you sourced, but nothing in it shows how methylating DNA can lead to a different amino acid protein being made from a gene.

How does methylating DNA supposedly lead to a different protein being produced?

How? I can quite simply explain how MUTATING the DNA rather than METHYLATING it will.

DNA triplet codons in a mRNA molecule specify a particular amino acid that is charged onto a tRNA molecule with the corresponding triplet codon. If one changes that DNA triplet codon the ribosome might produce a Alanine instead of a Glycine in that particular protein.

In the xylenase protein three amino acid substitutions during a directed evolution experiment led to an exzyme capable of working at high temperatures.

How is methylation/demethylation of DNA in epigenetics going to accomplish the same thing?

As a review methylated DNA is more attractive to histones, proteins that spool DNA around them and bind it up where RNA polymerase cannot turn the gene “on” making a mRNA out of it to be translated into the amino acid sequence of a protein. This works at turning genes OFF. It doesn't produce NEW proteins.

518 posted on 08/15/2008 3:54:00 PM PDT by allmendream (If "the New Yorker" makes a joke, and liberals don't get it, is it still funny?)
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To: allmendream

I see the problem...You have a very antiquated understanding of epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of ALL heritable changes in gene function that occur “without a change in the sequence of nuclear DNA.” But even that definition isn’t expansive enough, because now we are finding the epigenetics factors can “allow previously unseen genetic variation to be expressed.” Which, I dare say, goes right to the heart of the matter being discussed. Namely, the ability of an organism to adapt to changing environments was frontloaded by God at the time life was first created.


520 posted on 08/15/2008 4:08:36 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
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