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Epigenetics: Embedded bodies and the molecularisation of biography and milieu

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Abstract

The molecular biological field of epigenetics has recently attracted attention not only in biology, but also in the broader scientific community and the popular press. Commentators paint a very heterogeneous picture with some arguing that epigenetics is nothing but another aspect of gene regulation, and others enthusiastically proclaiming a paradigmatic shift in developmental biology. This article analyses a particular approach to environmental epigenetics – a subfield of epigenetics that is central to the recent excitement. The focus lies on an ethnographic analysis of research practices that enable a particular lab group to study the impact of different levels of context, for example, changes in the social and material environment, on epigenetic modification and thus phenotypic variation. The article argues that changes in the practice of doing epigenetic biology contribute to a molecularisation of biography and milieu, suggest the configuration of somatic sociality and produce a different concept of the body: the embedded body. This article concludes with a brief discussion of customary biology as a potential new research agenda at the interface of material and social inquiry.

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Notes

  1. Of course, such definitions are not mere reflections of research practice. They are strategic interventions. Observers of developments in science and technology are well aware that emergent research fields tend to follow fairly predictable paths of enthusiastically (over)stating their potential to perpetuate dynamism and momentum, as well as creating and meeting expectations in related communities of practice, funding agencies and the wider public (Brown and Michael, 2003).

  2. Predominantly single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and copy number variants (CNVs).

  3. The epigenetics drug market, which is almost entirely based on sequencing research and cancer diagnostics and prognostics, is currently estimated by the company Business Insights to be ‘worth over US$560 million derived from the sale of three anticancer products, which target two epigenetic pathways – DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) and histone deacteylase (HDAC) – and around 30 epigenetic drugs (…) under development from more than a dozen biotechnology companies’ (Business Insights, 2009; Aldridge, 2010).

  4. This field of research in formation is too heterogeneous to have received a single name or label as yet. Environmental epigenetics is sometimes used by those in the field to describe their own work, yet other labels such as developmental epigenetics or behavioural epigenetics are used interchangeably. This article uses environmental epigenetics and understands environmental to include not only the material but also the socio- and cultural-historical environment as something within which people dwell (Ingold, 2000).

  5. For details and extensive discussion, see Griesemer, 2002; Jablonka and Lamb, 2002; Wilkins, 2005; Whitelaw and Whitelaw, 2008.

  6. In studies, exposing pregnant animals to stressors, the F3 generation is the first unexposed. In pre-conception exposure, it is the F2 generation.

  7. They have tried to talk about social class but switched to social position after sustained criticism from social scientists that class implies more than is measured with a few epidemiological variables on socio-economic status – if it is a relevant concept in late modern societies at all.

  8. See, for example, the discussions around thrifty phenotypes and genotypes in the context of cardiovascular disease (Niewöhner, 2011).

  9. Single cell capture does exist as a valid approach but it is a highly resource intensive and thus expensive procedure that is rarely used, particularly not in countries where graduate students and lab technicians wages form a significant portion of the overall research budget.

  10. The notion of critical windows of increased plasticity is not restricted to molecular biology. It has a long tradition particularly in neuroscience and developments of brain function during ontogenesis. To what extent this rests ultimately on a Freudian notion of early-life impacts on adult existence remains to be discussed. Relevant here is the link to Konrad Lorenz's work on imprinting (Tzschentke and Plagemann, 2006). “See also the recent work on neurogenesis. (e.g. Rubin, 2009)”.

  11. A reviewer helpfully pointed out an important and potentially confusing second meaning of custom in the sense of custom-made. Although this is not the meaning I intend here, this reading does point to another important area of research currently discussed under the heading of individualisation of medicine. In this sense of custom-made biology, the concept would suggest a form of individualisation that is not centred on ever smaller populations of skin-bound individuals defined by similar genomes but of individuals defined by shared patterns of practice.

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Acknowledgements

The work for this article has been supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, grant no. 01GWS051. I thank Stefan Beck, the members of the Laboratory: Social Anthropology of Science and Technology at Humboldt University and the members of the Department of Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, for many productive discussions and critical commentary on countless earlier versions of this article. I also thank three anonymous reviewers and the editors for critical and constructive commentary and much appreciated help in straightening the argument.

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  1. Department of European Ethnology, Laboratory: Social Anthropology of Science & Technology, Center for Integrative Life Sciences, Humboldt University Berlin, Mohrenstr 41, Berlin, 10117, Germany

    Jörg Niewöhner

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Disclaimer The paper I hereby submit is comprised of original material that is not under review elsewhere, and the study on which the research is based has been subject to appropriate ethical review. I have no competing financial or intellectual interests.

Appendix

Appendix

Mechanisms of epigenetic modification

In its broadest definition, epigenetics refers to ‘the study of any long-term changes in gene function without changes to the actual DNA sequence’ (McGowan and Szyf, 2010). Epigenetic changes in DNA activity and gene function may occur through a number of mechanisms, two of which have received the most attention in biological research over the last decade: (1) DNA methylation and (2) chromatin modification.

  1. 1

    DNA methylation is the most intensely studied epigenetic mechanism. ‘DNA methylation is the post-replication addition of a methyl group to the carbon-5 position of the cytosine pyrimidine ring by DNA methyltransferase to form 5-methylcytosine (5-MeC)’ (Butcher and Beck, 2008). In other words, a methyl molecule (CH3) is added to the DNA base cytosine through the actions of a group of enzymes: cytosine is said to be methylated. Methylated DNA is not transcribed. Thus, increases in DNA methylation tend to decrease gene expression and vice versa. In contrast to DNA sequence changes, the process of methylation is reversible. Cytosine nucleotides can be demethylated either through incomplete maintenance during DNA replication or de novo through enzymatic action. Methylation patterns are semi-stable, can be transmitted through cell division and, in contrast to DNA sequence, are gene- and tissue-specific. (De)Methylation regulates gene expression in a way that is dynamic and highly responsive to cellular, organismic and environmental contexts.

  2. 2

    Chromatin conformation refers to a number of changes that alter chromatin structure. The DNA double helix is folded around histones to form the so-called nucleosome, which in turn is folded into chromatin. Chromatin structure, or, as biologists tend to call it, chromatin conformation, influences to what extent particular sections of DNA can be transcribed, that is, an important step in gene expression. Closed chromatin conformations (heterochromatin) decrease transcription rates, open chromatin conformations (euchromatin) increase transcription rates. Epigenetic research has investigated a number of mechanisms that modify histones altering the meta-structure of chromatin: acetylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitinylation and others. This area of research is not well explored as yet and offers interesting links to structural biology that are not discussed in this context.

Note that ‘long-term changes in gene function’ in the above definition commonly refers to changes to gene function that are passed on through cell division. For many biologists, the heritability of epigenetic modifications through mitosis is a defining feature of epigenetic processes. They thus define epigenetics more specifically as ‘the inheritance of DNA activity that does not depend on the naked DNA sequence’ (Esteller, 2008, p. S90). Inheritance in this definition refers to cellular inheritance and not gamete-based, transgenerational inheritance. Gamete-based, transgenerational inheritance of epigenetic marks has not been conclusively shown so far (Waterland et al, 2007; Whitelaw and Whitelaw, 2008).

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Niewöhner, J. Epigenetics: Embedded bodies and the molecularisation of biography and milieu. BioSocieties 6, 279–298 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2011.4

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