Paternal obesity is associated with IGF2 hypomethylation in newborns: results from a Newborn Epigenetics Study (NEST) cohort

Randy Jirtle
,
Adelheid Soubry
,
Joellen M. Schildkraut
,
Amy Murtha
,
Frances Wang
,
Zhiqing Huang

University of Bedfordshire

Research Output:

Contribution to journal

Article

Peer-review

Open access

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 Good Health and Well

Abstract

Data from epidemiological and animal model studies suggest that nutrition during pregnancy may affect the health status of subsequent generations. These transgenerational effects are now being explained by disruptions at the level of the epigenetic machinery. Besides in vitro environmental exposures, the possible impact on the reprogramming of methylation profiles at imprinted genes at a much earlier time point, such as during spermatogenesis or oogenesis, has not previously been considered. In this study, our aim was to determine associations between preconceptional obesity and DNA methylation profiles in the offspring, particularly at the differentially methylated regions (DMRs) of the imprinted Insulin-like Growth Factor 2 (IGF2) gene.