Epigenetics and Ageing

The term epigenetics refers to the heritable alterations not due to changes in DNA sequences, which modulate the individual phenotype by modulating the expression and the activity of genes (Armstrong, Epigenetics, Garland Science, New York, 2013; Pinel et al., BioSocieties 13:276–303, 2018). In fact, DNA methylation and histone modification, that are covalent and non-covalent modifications of DNA and histone proteins, alter DNA accessibility and overall chromatin structure, thereby regulating patterns of gene expression (Huang et al., Epigenomics 6:73–88, 2014; Allis and Jenuwein, Nat Rev Genet 17:487–500, 2016).