Vienna, July 1st 2007

After the reception by vice dean Fritz Schiemer and Ibrahim Elmadfa, Alexander Haslberger specified the objectives of the conference: The role of Epigenetics in transdisciplinary aspects between hereditary and environmental factors including nutrition and lifestyle for an integrative understanding of human health. Find the presentation here.


The first presentation by Thomas Schulze discussed the interaction of hereditary predispositions and environmental factors with a few on psychiatric diseases. More than 40% of the world population will experience a psychiatric disorder like depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorders in their life. There is a big genetic variation contributing to different phenotypes of schizophrenia. In this process the environment is important for developing a special phenotype. Consequently it is important to study the impact of genes in large samples together with environmental interactions. Get more information from the presentation.

Mahendra Shah showed that environmental factors, life style, human capacity, etc are rapidly changing. One of the biggest problems is the climate change based on air and water pollution and land contaminations disturbing the ecosystem and resulting in an increase of infectious diseases especially in developing countries. Get more information from the presentation.

A review on the potential and limitations of meta-analyses of population-based genetic association studies was presented by Stefania Boccia discussing also the relevance of MTHFR C677T polymorphism on gastric cancer. Get more information from the presentation.

The presentation of Randy Jirtle started with a definition of the term Epigenetics and its account for gene-coherent diseases. Agents suggested to alter the epigenome during pregnancy are dietary supplements, such as folic acid, vitamin B12, choline, betaine, genistein and Bisphenol A. These agents are known to alter coat colour and obesity prevalence in Agouti mice. Future objectives in Epigenetics will be the identification of epigenetically regulated targets in the human genome, such as imprinted genes and metastable epialleles. Get more information from the presentation.

Kurt Zatloukal introduced innovative approaches for the use of tissue banks where bio banks generally still lack the possibility to integrate environmental aspects because of methodic limitations. Get more information from the presentation.

Manuel Esteller opened the afternoon session with a presentation about the epigenetic link between aging and cancer. An important issue is the occurrence of so-called CpG-islands within the promoter region of a tumour suppressor gene. Hypermethylation of these areas, as well as gene-wide hypomethylation is accumulated during aging and contributes to cell-transformation that might eventually lead to tumour growth. Remarkably, in mutated cells genes of several epigenetic enzymes and telomere-length controlling enzymes show a reversal in their methylation pattern. Another aspect is the involvement of certain viruses that are regarded as tumour originators by interfering into epigenetic mechanisms. However, it is highlighted that the main factor for developing cancer is age. Get more information from the presentation.

The presentation Robert Mader continued on the interaction between Epigenetics and cancer. Overall it was shown that cancer genomes are generally hypomethylated, but certain regions seem to be selectively hypermethylated. Inhibition of DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) resulting in up-or downregulation of a large number of genes, as well as an observed correlation of increased activity of DNMT species 1 and 3A with tumour growth lead to the conclusion that epigenetic mechanisms play an important role in the process of tumour genesis. Get more information from the presentation.

In the presentation of Gunnar Schotta epigenetic changes in the DNA are described. These are not related to changes in the DNA sequence, but deal with the following major DNA modification, such as DNA methylation, histone modification and variants, nucleosome remodelling and non-coding RNAs, whereas one single mark can have many different functions. Research about histone modification fortifies the consideration of under-represented repressive histone marks as being characteristic for stem cells, young cells and tumour cells. Get more information from the presentation.

A Swedish study introduced by Gunnar Kaati et al. confirms that nutrition might induce epigenetic or other changes that could be passed on to the next generations. It appears that the slow growth period (age 8-12) is a period sensitive to food availability. Effects on health and longevity of grandchildren can be found, whereas the influence is sex-linked. Nutrition in the SGP of the grandmother influences the female, whereas the food availability of the grandfather influences the male test person. It was also found that early social circumstances influence the longevity for male probands. Get more information from the presentation.

A wrap-up of the conference together with general aspects on the topic was featured by Johannes Huber. The question whether human properties can be passed on to the offspring is of great concern, since this discussion started with the different evolution theories from Lamarck and Darwin. Get more information from the presentation.