Sperm protein links father’s lifestyle with offspring’s health

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It’s another critical piece of information that says we really need to start looking at fathers’ pre-conception health
– Sarah Kimmins, McGill University

There’s more and more evidence that men’s lifestyle and environment long before they have kids can affect their future children’s health. Now, a Canadian-led study has shed some light on how and why that effect occurs.

When the researchers changed signals on proteins called histones in the sperm of male mice, their offspring and even their grandchildren had increased birth defects, mortality and stunted growth, they reported in the journal Science. The signals that were changed are the type of signals that are affected by environmental factors such as food, drugs and stress in both mice and humans.

“We didn’t expect these lasting effects across generations from changing a protein in one generation,” said Sarah Kimmins, an associate professor of reproductive biology at Montreal’s McGill University, the senior author of the study.

“It’s a completely non-DNA based transmission of this abnormal development.”

While efforts to prevent birth defects are mainly focused on mothers and their health before conception and during pregnancy, Kimmins says the new discovery emphasizes that what’s transmitted in the father’s sperm is also essential to the health and development of the offspring.

“It’s another critical piece of information that says we really need to start looking at fathers’ pre-conception health,” she said. “And that’s a message that’s really missed in society.”

Kimmins said there are two main kinds of evidence that have shown that men’s (and other male mammals’) environment before conception affects their offsprings’ health:

• Epidemiological studies that link things such as a father’s smoking and diet with their children’s and grandchildren’s health, growth and risk of health problems such as cardiovascular disease.
• Lab studies in animals making a direct link between a father’s diet, stress and exposure to drugs or toxic substances with their offsprings’ health.

“What we don’t understand is how that information is transmitted from the father across generations,” Kimmins added.

It’s well-known that fathers pass on DNA and genes to their offspring, but those genes and DNA don’t change much except for rare mutations.

More recently, scientists have started looking at signals called methylation that attach to the DNA to turn genes up or down. Those signals are part of the “epigenome” – a system that affects the way genes are expressed.

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