Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

Bioscientifica Proceedings, 2019

DOI: 10.1530/biosciprocs.7.005

Reproduction in Domestic Ruminants, 1(7), p. 59-72

DOI: 10.5661/rdr-vii-59

Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Reproduction in Domestic Ruminants, p. 59-72

DOI: 10.7313/upo9781907284991.007

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Dietary regulation of developmental programming in ruminants: epigenetic modifications in the germline.

Journal article published in 1970 by Smith, Te Spencer, Kd D. Sinclair ORCID, A. Karamitri, Mc Lucy, Jl Pate, Ds S. Gardner ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Ruminants have been utilised extensively to investigate the developmental origins of health and disease, with the sheep serving as the model species of choice to complement dietary studies in the rat and mouse. Surprisingly few studies, however, have investigated delayed effects of maternal undernutrition during pregnancy on adult offspring health and a consistent phenotype, together with underlying mechanistic pathways, has not emerged. Nevertheless, when broad consideration is given to all studies with ruminants it is apparent that interventions that are initiated very early in gestation, and/or prior to conception, lead to greater effects on adult physiology than those that are specifically targeted to late gestation. Effects induced following dietary interventions at the earliest stages of mammalian development have been shown to arise as a consequence of alterations to key epigenetic processes that occur in germ cells and pluripotent embryonic cells. Currently, our understanding of epigenetic programming in the germline is greatest for the mouse, and is considered in detail in this article together with what is known in ruminants. This species imbalance, however, looks set to change as fully annotated genomic maps are developed for domesticated large animal species, and with the advent of 'next-generation' DNA sequencing technologies that have the power to globally map the epigenome at single-base-pair resolution. These developments would help to address such issues as sexually dimorphic epigenetic alterations to DNA methylation that have been found to arise following dietary restrictions during the peri-conceptional period, the effects of paternal nutritional status on epigenetic programming through the germline, and transgenerational studies where, in future, greater emphasis in domesticated ruminants should be placed on traits of agricultural importance.