Altered sperm DNA methylation provides an epigenetic route from overweight and older men to intergenerational disease transmission

Abstract

Significance When it comes to the health of a pregnancy and the child, the mother has long been the focus. However, an accumulation of evidence from animal models indicates that a father’s health and exposures are equally important. For humans, it remains unknown how sperm carries information on a father’s health and environment to influence embryo development. It is thought that such information may be transmitted through heritable information carried by sperm, including epigenetic modifications established during spermatogenesis and transmitted at fertilization. Epigenetic mechanisms control how genes are used. Here, we showed that the epigenetic information in sperm was influenced by paternal health and age and that these changes may alter embryonic gene expression, placenta development, and child health.