Individuals display morphological variation when genetic buffering is reduced, allowing phenotypic differences to be selected for during successive generations. A new study shows that perturbations of chromatin-inheritance genes uncover morphological variation, and epigenetic variants can be rapidly selected. This finding extends our understanding of the means by which phenotypic variation is generated and brings chromatin inheritance into the realm of multigenic traits.
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Rutherford, S., Henikoff, S. Quantitative epigenetics. Nat Genet 33, 6–8 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0103-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0103-6
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