The "epigenetics" they're talking about is the chemical modification of the DNA. So while we usually talk about sequences of A,T,G,C we've actually got an additional symbol e.g. M. Which might be "methylated C".
So, these "base modifications" are actually increasing the alphabet size, you have the normal A,T,G,C bases and then a set of modified bases.
>I know there are presently ways to produce DNA synthetically, but what you've said seems to indicate there's room here for any pre-defined sequence I print to end up doing different things in a cloned cell than their synthetic duplicates might.
yes, or they might get modified so they are similar to the sequences already present.
So, these "base modifications" are actually increasing the alphabet size, you have the normal A,T,G,C bases and then a set of modified bases.
>I know there are presently ways to produce DNA synthetically, but what you've said seems to indicate there's room here for any pre-defined sequence I print to end up doing different things in a cloned cell than their synthetic duplicates might.
yes, or they might get modified so they are similar to the sequences already present.