Researchers investigating a sea anemone found that removing most of its DNA methylation had little effect on normal development, but instead activated hidden “jumping genes,” suggesting an ancient role for DNA methylation as a genomic defense system.

How this affects you

The findings challenge previous assumptions about DNA methylation's primary function, suggesting its ancestral role was genomic defense against 'jumping genes' rather than gene expression regulation, and demonstrate how epigenetic changes can be inherited across generations in some animals.