Sentence:  To test this hypothesis our discussion is focused on finding evidence for gene-specific <WSD>epitypes</WSD> that supports or rejects cause-and-effect relationships between genotype, <WSD>epitype</WSD> and phenotype....The first approach (A) examines the penetrance of transgenerationally inherited <WSD>epitypes</WSD> that are known to activate or silence the expression of disease related gene(s), which in turn correlate with onset of the "aberrant" disease phenotypes....The second and less direct approach (B) searches out <WSD>epitypes</WSD> that are duplicated, as DNA sequences are duplicated, and examines multiple copies of DNA sequence and <WSD>epitype</WSD> that have been evolutionarily co-conserved. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  An epigenetic alteration in a gene.