Nutritional modulation of the epigenome and its implication for future health

Abstract

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as type-2 diabetes and CVD are now highly prevalent in both developed and developing countries. Evidence from both human and animal studies shows that early-life nutrition is an important determinant of NCD risk in later life. The mechanism by which the early-life environment influences future disease risk has been suggested to include the altered epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Epigenetic processes regulate the accessibility of genes to the cellular proteins that control gene transcription, determining where and when a gene is switched on and its level of activity. Epigenetic processes not only play a central role in regulating gene expression but also allow an organism to adapt to the environment. In this review, we will focus on how both maternal and paternal nutrition can alter the epigenome and the evidence that these changes are causally involved in determining future disease risk.

Nutrigenomics in livestock sector and its human-animal interface-a review

“…Folic acid and Vitamin B12 therapy inhibit adipogenic development in 3T3-L1 cells via modulating Wingless and Int (Wnt) 10b ( Cordero, Gomez-Uriz, Campion, Milagro & Martinez, 2013 ). Burton et al., 2019 suggested the influence of methyl donors on adipogenesis through epigenetic alterations in processing genes.…”

Biomarkers of Nutrition and Health: New Tools for New Approaches

“…Animal studies have also shown that changes in maternal intake during pregnancy that affect the availability of methyl donors can alter the epigenetic pattern of certain regions of the genome (metastable epi-alleles) in the early embryo that are stable in different tissues, causing permanent phenotypic variation in offspring [163]. In humans, although studies are still scarce, there is increasing evidence showing that perinatal nutrition may trigger persistent changes in DNA methylation [164]. For example, it has been shown that variations in methyl donor intake (associated with seasonal differences in diet: the rainy (‘hungry’) season and the dry (‘harvest’) season) in women of a rural population of Gambia during conception predict the methylation patterns of metastable epialleles in offspring [165,166].…”

Perspective: Quality Versus Quantity; Is It Important to Assess the Role of Enhancers in Complex Disease from an In Vivo Perspective?

“…CpG methylation is an epigenetic marker that is strongly affected by environmental factors such as diet, early life stress, or the life-styles led by our parents [ 71 ]. Environmentally altered CpG methylation, in turn, can modulate susceptibility to diseases such as depression, addiction and anxiety in subsequent generations [ 72 , 73 ].…”