SÅAWOMIRA f Polish. Polish feminine form of SÅAWOMIR. SLOAN f English (Rare). Variant of SLOANE. SLOANE f English (Rare). From an Irish surname which was derived from an Anglicized form of the given name SLUAGHADHAN. SLUAGHADHÃ¡N slobodan M, Serbian, Macedonian. Croatian From South slavic sloboda meaning. freedomreek form of SOPHRONIUS. SOPHRONIUS m Late Greek (Latinized). Latinized form of the Greek name ÏÏÏÏÎ¿Î½Î¹Î¿Ï (Sophronios) , which was derived from Greek ÏÏÏÏÏÎ½ (sophron) self-controlled, sensible ... [more]. SOPHUS m Ancient Greek (Latinized). From the Greek name ÏÎ¿ÏÎ¿Ï (Sophos) which meant skilled, clever.
But a burgeoning field known as epigenetics is showing that many cancers may not be caused by mutations in genes, but by chemical modifications that alter how the genes function. Such modifications to genes are epigenetic-literally on top of or related to changes in the DNA sequence.
In addition, epigenetics is important for X-chromosome inactivation in female mammals, which is necessary so that females do not have twice the number of X-chromosome gene products as males (Egger et al., 2004). Thus, the significance of turning genes off via epigenetic changes is readily apparent.