Paper: Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance of Environmental Information in C. elegans and Mammals

A massive meta-analysis published in Cell details how epigenetic modifications of DNA (methylation and histones) respond adaptively and immediately to environmental, nutritional and stress factors. The study demonstrates that the genome is not a static read-only instruction manual, but rather a highly dynamic and plastic system, governed by higher cellular meta-information that modulates gene expression. This collapses the old central dogma of molecular biology that postulated a strictly unidirectional flow of information (DNA -> RNA -> Protein).