Finally, experiments have also shown an extensive genotype-by-environment interaction, indicating that the effects of mutations are also modulated by the environment (Bell 2008), and that conducting fitness assays in the novelty of the laboratory environment may fail to capture at least some of the effects in nature.
Moreover, while the epigenome is known to be modulated by the environment, this modulation can also be affected by genetic variants.
This assumption follows the stemness phenotype model (SPM) proposing that all cancer cells possess stem cell properties, and that stemness is modulated by the environment such that CSCs and non-CSCs can interconvert into each other when changes in the environment favours this conversion [ 32].
The majority of these complex diseases are multifactorial and are modulated by genetics, environment, age and sometimes, gender.
Variation in behaviors in natural populations arises from complex networks of multiple segregating polymorphic alleles whose expression can be modulated by the environment.
These methyl groups in DNA are covalently introduced by enzymes called DNA methyltransferases (DNA MTases) according to the specificities of the DNA MTases which are in turn modulated by the environment (Fig. 1).
"Our research explains something that wasn't known before in terms of how multiple sclerosis is modulated by the environment," says co-author Francisco Quintana, a neurologist at the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Although it is acknowledged that genetic variation contributes to individual differences in thermotolerance, the specific genes and pathways involved and how they are modulated by the environment remain poorly understood.
Thus, podoplanin expression may be modulated by the environment of the tumour.
How C. elegans development and behavior are modulated by the environment will also be greatly enriched by a better knowledge of its natural history.
