New work by Columbia researchers has turned a textbook principle of genetics on its head and revealed why some people who carry disease-causing genes experience no symptoms.
Every biology student learns that each cell in our body (except sperm and eggs) contains two copies of each gene, one from each parent, and each copy plays an equal part in the cell.Â
The new study shows that some cells are often biased when it comes to some genes and inactivate one parent’s copy. The phenomenon was discovered about a decade ago, but the new study shows how it can influence disease outcomes. The Columbia researchers looked at certain immune cells of ordinary people to get an estimate of the phenomenon and found that these cells had inactivated the maternal or paternal copy of a gene for one out of every 20 genes utilized by the cell.Â
“This is suggesting that there is more plasticity in our DNA than we thought before,” says study leader Dusan Bogunovic, professor of pediatric immunology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
So in some cells in your body every 20th gene can be a little bit more Mom, a little bit less Dad, or vice versa. And to make thing even more complicated, this can be different in white blood cells than in the kidney cells, and it can perhaps change with time.”
Dusan Bogunovic, Professor, Pediatric Immunology, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
The results were published Jan. 1 in