FLICKR, ZAPPYS TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONSA team led by researchers from the University of Copenhagen discovered differences in the sperm epigenomes of lean and obese men, and in the sperm of obese men before and after bariatric surgery, according to a study published today (December 3) in Cell Metabolism. The results support the idea that fathers’ environments can be encoded in their sperm with potential downstream effects on embryos.
“There’s an emerging body of evidence that both mothers’ and fathers’ metabolic status can have major effects on germ cells, and these can have important implications for the health of the offspring,” said Mary-Elizabeth Patti, an endocrinologist and diabetes researcher at the Joslin Diabetes Center and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “This [study] is clearly providing one other piece of evidence to support the notion that there are differences in germ cells, in humans, as a function of paternal obesity.”
The Copenhagen research team recruited two dozen Danish men between the ages of 24 and 40 and classified them as lean (BMI 20–25) or obese (BMI > 29.7). Each volunteer provided a single ejaculate sample; the researchers scanned the sperm’s genomic DNA for methylation ...
