Environmentally Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Somatic Transcriptomes

Environmentally induced epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of adult onset disease involves a variety of phenotypic changes suggesting a general alteration in genome activity. Investigation of eleven different tissue transcriptomes in male and female F3 generation vinclozolin versus control lineage rats demonstrated all tissues examined had unique transgenerational transcriptomes. Common cellular pathways and processes were identified among the tissues. A bionetwork analysis identified gene modules with coordinated gene expression and each had unique gene networks regulating tissue specific gene expression and function. A large number of statistically significant over-represented clusters of differentially expressed genes were identified and termed Epigenetic Control Regions. Combined observations demonstrate that all tissues derived from the epigenetically altered germ line develop transgenerational transcriptomes unique to the tissue, but common epigenetic control regions in the genome appear to in part coordinately regulate these tissue specific transcriptomes. This systems biology approach provides insight into the molecular mechanisms involved in the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of a variety of adult onset disease phenotypes.

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Skinner MK, Manikkam M, Haque MM, Zhang B, Savenkova MI