A study by families living through conflict in Syria suggests that the genetic impression of their trauma has been passed to their children and grandchildren.
Research1 The controversial idea focuses that trauma can leave an ‘epigenetic scar’ on a person’s gene that can be passed on the following generations. Not all scientists agree that trauma may be inherited in such a way and the mechanism for such heritage is not known. But the latest research studied the children of the survivors of the massacre in Rwanda2 And Holocaust3 A similar effect has changed.
Rachel Yehuda, a neuroscientist at the Econy School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, says, “This is a really good attempt that you say Rachel Yehuda, a neurocientist of Econy School of Medicine in Mount Sinai, New York City, says, however, the study” should be seen as a proof of the concept “, it does not say that it is not clear that or not. Whether or not behavior affects.
Published in paper Scientific report Last month, researchers compared the figures of 10 families, who fled from violent incidents in Syria in the 1980s, and 22 families who fled after rebellion in 2011, with a control group of 16 Syrian families who were not exposed to war -related violence. The team analyzed the epigenetic marks – chemical tags on DNA sequences that arise from environmental factors including stress – in over 850,000 DNA areas. Epignetic marks do not change DNA sequences, but it can affect how genes work.
The authors found that adults and children who were exposed to violence in the 1980s and directly after 2011, some DNA regions had specific epigenetic points. In the case of a woman who witnessed violence in the 1980s, the tag remained in her daughter and grandchildren. Researchers found none of these epigenetic marks among the people of the control group. There were 131 participants in the total.
The latest conclusions are the first to identify the epigenetic signatures of trauma in three generations in humans in a controlled research design “, called Rana Dajani, a molecular biologist study co-writer of Hashmite University in Jaraka, Jordan. “Science is about small steps, and it is a slightly huge step in understanding the epigenetic heritage,” she says.
Forty year shock
The people of Syria have experienced more than 40 years. In June 1979, the then President Hafaz al-Assad exposed a rift on the attempt of a rebellion, and in 1982, his soldiers bombed the city of Hamma for days, killing 30,000 people.
One of the study participants, now a grandmother, who was pregnant with her daughter, saw a rift. The study consisted of nine other women whose mothers experienced violence. His children also participated in research.
Former President Hafs al-Assad’s armies and tank-round leveled many neighborhoods of Hama. Credit: Archive PL/Almi
Among the participants of the study, 22 mothers and 20 of their children saw the second period of violence after the Syrian rebellion in 2011. This was when Bashar al-Assad, who fled the country last December, deployed the army and the government-bound militia against the protesters. Mothers had 19 other children, who were born even after painful events, who were also studied.
To understand whether the trauma had left the epigenetic marks as a result of these violent incidents, and whether these traces have been passed through the maternal germ line, Dajani and their colleagues focus on the pattern of DNA metallication – an epigenetic mechanism in which DNA has been tagged with methyl groups. It is “one of the most studied (processes) and we have technology to do it today”, called Dajani.
In five years, researchers discovered the study participants of Jordan’s Syrian communities. The team defined a painful experience of violence as seriously beating or persecuting by officers or militia, seeing an injured person or deadly person, or a witness to beaten, shot or killed someone else.
He analyzed DNA samples from the cheeks cells of the participants and found that in the 1980s, children and women with painful experience of the first hand of violence had tagged specific methilations on 21 DNA areas.
The analysis also revealed tags on 14 DNA areas in Grandma, who saw the violence of the 1980s as well as their daughter and grandson. These tags were also present in daughters and grandchildren, who were descendants of nine women who saw that violence.
“At least two – if three or probably four – generations are really important,” Vancouver, Canada, is called Michael Cobor at the British Columbia University, Canada. It is often not done in humans, “is called Michael Cobor at the British Columbia University in Canada, Canada.
Memory reset
Researchers disagree on whether the marks of methylation on DNA may be passed between generations. This is because during the early stages of mammalian growth, the genome passes equal to a memory reset – a process known as epigenetic repairing – which cleans the DNA methystation tag.
“All these marks, almost all, are erased when eggs collide with sperm,” says Cobor. He said, “Biology does not support DNA mythology just as a vehicle of inter -inter -transmission.”
