DMMC Course: EPIGENETICS: FROM MECHANISMS TO MEDICINES
1110-1200 Tuesday 26 June 2007. O’Reilly Hall, University College Dublin.
Epigenetic
Transgenerational Actions of Endocrine Disruptors on Reproduction, Disease
and Evolution
Prof Michael
K. Skinner (Center for Reproductive Biology, School of Molecular Biosciences,
Washington State University)
Endocrine disruptors can effect embryonic testis development at the time of testis morphogenesis and cause an increase in germ cell apoptosis in the adult for multiple generations (F1, F2, F3 and F4). In addition as the animals age transgenerational disease states were observed including tumor development, prostate disease and kidney disease. The transgenerational epigenetic mechanism appears to involve the actions of an environmental compound at the time of sex determination to alter the epigenetic (i.e DNA methylation) programming of the germ line that then alters the transcriptomes of developing organs to induce disease development transgenerationally in a heritable manner. The suggestion that environmental factors can reprogram the germ line to induce epigenetic transgenerational disease states is a new paradigm to consider in disease etiology and evolution.