Paternal diet programs offspring health through sperm- and seminal plasma-specific pathways in mice

Abstract

Parental health and diet at the time of conception determine the development and life-long disease risk of their offspring. While the association between poor maternal diet and offspring health is well established, the underlying mechanisms linking paternal diet with offspring health are poorly defined. Possible programming pathways include changes in testicular and sperm epigenetic regulation and status, seminal plasma composition, and maternal reproductive tract responses regulating early embryo development. In this study, we demonstrate that paternal low-protein diet induces sperm-DNA hypomethylation in conjunction with blunted female reproductive tract embryotrophic, immunological, and vascular remodeling responses. Furthermore, we identify sperm- and seminal plasma-specific programming effects of paternal diet with elevated offspring adiposity, metabolic dysfunction, and altered gut microbiota.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1806333115
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology
College of Health & Life Sciences
College of Health & Life Sciences > Chronic and Communicable Conditions
Additional Information: Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Publication ISSN: 1091-6490
Last Modified: 25 Mar 2024 08:27
Date Deposited: 03 Sep 2018 14:54
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://www.pnas ... pnas.1806333115 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2018-10-02
Published Online Date: 2018-08-22
Accepted Date: 2018-07-26
Authors: Watkins, Adam J.
Dias, Irundika (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-6620-8221)
Tsuro, Heather
Allen, Danielle
Emes, Richard D.
Moreton, Joanna
Wilson, Ray
Ingram, Richard J. M.
Sinclair, Kevin D.

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