Fat Dads Must Not Be Blamed for Their Children's Health Problems

Overview

Journal BMC Med

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2013 Feb 8

PMID 23388448

Citations 3

Authors

Gudrun E Moore

Philip Stanier

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The relationship between the parental genomes in terms of the future growth and development of their offspring is not critical. For the majority of the genome the tissue-specific gene expression and epigenetic status is shared between the parents equally, with both alleles contributing without parental bias. For a very small number of genes the rules change and control of expression is restricted to a specific, parentally derived allele, a phenomenon known as genomic imprinting. The insulin-like growth factor 2 (Igf2/IGF2) is a robustly imprinted gene, important for fetal growth in both mice and humans. In utero IGF2 exhibits paternal expression, which is controlled by several mechanisms, including the maternally expressing untranslated H19 gene. In the study by Soubry et al., a correlation is drawn between the IGF2 methylation status in fetal cord blood leucocytes, and the obesity status of the father from whom the active IGF2 allele is derived through his sperm. These data imply that paternal obesity affects the normal IGF2 methylation in the sperm and this in turn alters the expression of IGF2 in the baby.

Citing Articles

Combined effect of different factors on weight status and cardiometabolic risk in Italian adolescents.

Bianco A, Filippi A, Breda J, Leonardi V, Paoli A, Petrigna L Ital J Pediatr. 2019; 45(1):32.

PMID: 30836999 PMC: 6402148. DOI: 10.1186/s13052-019-0619-9.

An Epigenetic Prism to Norms and Values.

Hendrickx K, Van Hoyweghen I Front Genet. 2018; 9:63.

PMID: 29535764 PMC: 5834431. DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2018.00063.

Long non-coding RNAs could act as vectors for paternal heredity of high fat diet-induced obesity.

An T, Zhang T, Teng F, Zuo J, Pan Y, Liu Y Oncotarget. 2017; 8(29):47876-47889.

PMID: 28599310 PMC: 5564612. DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.18138.

References

Abu-Amero S, Ali Z, Bennett P, Vaughan J, Moore G . Expression of the insulin-like growth factors and their receptors in term placentas: a comparison between normal and IUGR births. Mol Reprod Dev. 1998; 49(3):229-35. DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2795(199803)49:3<229::AID-MRD2>3.0.CO;2-Q. View

Rachmilewitz J, Goshen R, Ariel I, Schneider T, De Groot N, Hochberg A . Parental imprinting of the human H19 gene. FEBS Lett. 1992; 309(1):25-8. DOI: 10.1016/0014-5793(92)80731-u. View

Giannoukakis N, Deal C, Paquette J, Goodyer C, Polychronakos C . Parental genomic imprinting of the human IGF2 gene. Nat Genet. 1993; 4(1):98-101. DOI: 10.1038/ng0593-98. View

Moore T, Haig D . Genomic imprinting in mammalian development: a parental tug-of-war. Trends Genet. 1991; 7(2):45-9. DOI: 10.1016/0168-9525(91)90230-N. View

DeChiara T, Efstratiadis A, Robertson E . A growth-deficiency phenotype in heterozygous mice carrying an insulin-like growth factor II gene disrupted by targeting. Nature. 1990; 345(6270):78-80. DOI: 10.1038/345078a0. View

Klauwer D, Blum W, Hanitsch S, Rascher W, Lee P, Kiess W . IGF-I, IGF-II, free IGF-I and IGFBP-1, -2 and -3 levels in venous cord blood: relationship to birthweight, length and gestational age in healthy newborns. Acta Paediatr. 1997; 86(8):826-33. DOI: 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1997.tb08605.x. View

Ishida M, Moore G . The role of imprinted genes in humans. Mol Aspects Med. 2012; 34(4):826-40. DOI: 10.1016/j.mam.2012.06.009. View

Heijmans B, Tobi E, Stein A, Putter H, Blauw G, Susser E . Persistent epigenetic differences associated with prenatal exposure to famine in humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008; 105(44):17046-9. PMC: 2579375. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0806560105. View

Cedar H, Bergman Y . Linking DNA methylation and histone modification: patterns and paradigms. Nat Rev Genet. 2009; 10(5):295-304. DOI: 10.1038/nrg2540. View

10.

Koukoura O, Sifakis S, Soufla G, Zaravinos A, Apostolidou S, Jones A . Loss of imprinting and aberrant methylation of IGF2 in placentas from pregnancies complicated with fetal growth restriction. Int J Mol Med. 2011; 28(4):481-7. DOI: 10.3892/ijmm.2011.754. View

11.

Wang Z, Fung M, Barlow D, Wagner E . Regulation of embryonic growth and lysosomal targeting by the imprinted Igf2/Mpr gene. Nature. 1994; 372(6505):464-7. DOI: 10.1038/372464a0. View

12.

DeChiara T, Robertson E, Efstratiadis A . Parental imprinting of the mouse insulin-like growth factor II gene. Cell. 1991; 64(4):849-59. DOI: 10.1016/0092-8674(91)90513-x. View

13.

Hoyo C, Fortner K, Murtha A, Schildkraut J, Soubry A, Demark-Wahnefried W . Association of cord blood methylation fractions at imprinted insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2), plasma IGF2, and birth weight. Cancer Causes Control. 2012; 23(4):635-45. PMC: 3313040. DOI: 10.1007/s10552-012-9932-y. View

14.

Apostolidou S, Abu-Amero S, ODonoghue K, Frost J, Olafsdottir O, Chavele K . Elevated placental expression of the imprinted PHLDA2 gene is associated with low birth weight. J Mol Med (Berl). 2006; 85(4):379-87. DOI: 10.1007/s00109-006-0131-8. View

15.

Soubry A, Schildkraut J, Murtha A, Wang F, Huang Z, Bernal A . Paternal obesity is associated with IGF2 hypomethylation in newborns: results from a Newborn Epigenetics Study (NEST) cohort. BMC Med. 2013; 11:29. PMC: 3584733. DOI: 10.1186/1741-7015-11-29. View

16.

Hogg K, Price E, Hanna C, Robinson W . Prenatal and perinatal environmental influences on the human fetal and placental epigenome. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2012; 92(6):716-26. DOI: 10.1038/clpt.2012.141. View