Model organisms and their application in environmental epigenetics

Abstract Epigenetic mechanisms operate at the interface between the environment and the genome of a given organism. More particularly, they convert environmental stimuli as diverse as chemical pollutants, nutritional components, temperature changes, and social conditions into changes in the chromatin landscape, which influence gene expression in the absence of alterations in the DNA sequence, ultimately leading to phenotype adaptation and diversification. The use of experimental model organisms in epigenetics research allows for the careful manipulation of environmental factors in order to understand how they mechanistically modulate the establishment, maintenance, and inheritance of epigenetic configurations affecting gene expression and phenotype. This chapter provides a perspective on the broad spectrum of established and emerging model organisms employed in environmental epigenetics research. The research illustrates how these model systems contributed fundamental discoveries in this field and discuss the translational relevance of these discoveries.