National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence (or) a change in phenotype without a change in genotype. Phenotype is the observable or measurable characteristics of an organism i.e., height, behaviour, colour, shape, and size. Insects are being examined for their epigenetic phenomena and the underlying mechanism behind it. Epigenetics is well studied in fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Gene is segments of the DNA sequence that store the information to synthesize proteins or RNAs that carry out specific functions. Epigenetics is important in cellular differentiation which is responsible for the phenotypic plasticity. Epigenetics is been investigated in plants and animals. On comparing other organisms insects possess a high degree of phenotypic variation. This variation is due to switch on and off mechanism of gene. Gene expression and repression in insects is regulated through epigenetic mechanisms i.e. DNA Methylation, Histone modification and Noncoding RNAs which influence the phenotypic modification. In recent days insects are used as models in studying epigenetics. RNA interference (RNAi), also known as RNA silencing, refers to a set of molecular processes in which noncoding RNA molecules target and silence the expression of specific nucleic acids. Silencing Dnmt3 expression in newly hatched honeybee larvae mimics the effect of royal jelly, namely, the larvae destined to become workers develop into queens with fully developed ovaries. The detailed mechanisms of epigenetics in insect were discussed in the paper.
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