- Early life stress and exposure to trauma can interact with a person’s genetics in several ways:
- Post-transcriptional modification of enzymes that mediate epigenetic changes, e.g., modification of DNA methylation enzymes
- Modulation of the activity of epigenetic enzymes, thereby increasing or decreasing downstream changes
- Activation of proteins that bind to DNA and alter the methylation state of a gene, e.g., transcription factors
- Altered expression of non-coding RNAs, which effect changes to DNA methylation, and alter the stability of mRNA transcripts – ultimately altering the level of gene expression.1,2
DNA=deoxyribonucleic acid; mRNA=messenger ribonucleic acid; RNA=ribonucleic acid.
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