Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the basic concepts of clinical epigenetics. We shall start with the core issues about epigenetic modificiaiton of genetic information and examine in turn as to what are the diferent mechanisms and phenomena associated with epigenetic transformation of cellular or DNA signals. We shall look into DNA methylation, histone acetylation, X inactivation, and other phenomena and put them into clinical context and genome wide association studies. A list of gloassary and additional terms will be presented as well.