In a recent review published in the journal Nature , a group of researchers investigated how preconception high-fat diet (HFD) affects epididymal spermatozoa and the role of mitochondrial transfer Ribonucleic Acid (mt-tRNAs) in influencing offspring metabolic health. Study: Epigenetic inheritance of diet-induced and sperm-borne mitochondrial RNAs . Image Credit: Prostock-studio / Shutterstock Apart from Mendelian inheritance, fathers use alternative routes for intergenerational information transfer, including a complex, dynamic, and environment-sensitive pool of small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) in mature spermatozoa, which influence embryonic development and adult phenotypes.
Spermatozoa production involves spermatogenesis and epididymal maturation, both potential windows of environmental susceptibility. Further research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms behind diet-induced epigenetic changes in sperm and their long-term effects on offspring health. To investigate how epididymal spermatozoa respond to environmental influences and to discern the contributions of epididymal and spermatogenic information to paternal intergenerational effects, the team conducted an experiment on 6-week-old male mice.
These mice were fed either an HFD or a low-fat diet (LFD) for 2 weeks. After this dietary challenge, some of the treated males were mated directly to unexposed females to generate the F1 generation (Early High-Fat Diet (eHFD) group). Others were first allowed to mate to cle.
