Epigenetics is the study of various heritable alterations that control gene expression without changing the DNA sequence. 1 The name epigenetics comes from the Greek prefix “epi”, which means on top ...

Accumulating evidence indicates that epigenetic modifiers have key roles in genome-wide reprogramming and activation and repression of specific genes during mammalian germ-cell development.

The closer we look at the genome, the more we appreciate the role of small RNAs in what we call epigenetic inheritance. That's when traits get passed down without altering our basic DNA sequence.