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

ABSTRACT: The association between poor paternal diet, perturbed embryonic development, and adult offspring ill health represents a new focus for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis. However, our understanding of the underlying mechanisms remains ill-defined. We have developed a mouse paternal low-protein diet (LPD) model to determine its impact on semen quality, maternal uterine physiology, and adult offspring health. We observed that sperm from LPD-fed male mice displayed global hypomethylation associated with reduced testicular expression of DNA methylation and folate-cycle regulators compared with normal protein diet (NPD) fed males. Furthermore, females mated with LPD males display blunted preimplantation uterine immunological, cell signaling, and vascular remodeling respo

SUBMITTER: Watkins AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6176621 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature