Epigenetics Of Transgenerational Inheritance Of Disease

Elucidating how the environment affects human health will further our understanding of disease risk and prevention, and our potential for adaptation, such as how metabolism changes in response to poor diet. Recent evidence reveals that exposure to environmental stressors in our lifetime might affect disease risk in our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. This phenomenon is known as transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI) and is thought to involve the transmission of epigenetic information via the germline over multiple generations, independent of the DNA base sequence. Epigenetic factors (e.g., DNA methylation, histone modifications, noncoding RNA), and mitochondria, are responsive to environmental stressors and can be transmitted between generations. However, little is currently understood about the inheritance mechanism and how it perpetuates in subsequent generations to cause disease. Here, we explore potential occurrences of TEI of disease risk in human populations exposed to famine, toxicants, and psychological stress and consider key animal models of TEI with the aim of understanding the mechanistic intricacies of this phenomenon as it relates to disease inheritance.