Journal article : Review
How do lifestyle and environmental factors influence the sperm epigenome? Effects on sperm fertilising ability, embryo development, and offspring health
- Abstract:
- Recent studies support the influence of paternal lifestyle and diet before conception on the health of the offspring via epigenetic inheritance through sperm DNA methylation, histone modification, and small non-coding RNA (sncRNA) expression and regulation. Smoking may induce DNA hypermethylation in genes related to anti-oxidation and insulin resistance. Paternal diet and obesity are associated with greater risks of metabolic dysfunction in offspring via epigenetic alterations in the sperm. Metabolic changes, such as high blood glucose levels and increased body weight, are commonly observed in the offspring of fathers subjected to chronic stress, in addition to an enhanced risk of depressive-like behaviour and increased sensitivity to stress in both the F0 and F1 generations. DNA methylation is correlated with alterations in sperm quality and the ability to fertilise oocytes, possibly via a differentially regulated MAKP81IP3 signalling pathway. Paternal exposure to toxic endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is also linked to the transgenerational transmission of increased predisposition to disease, infertility, testicular disorders, obesity, and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) in females through epigenetic changes during gametogenesis. As the success of assisted reproductive technology (ART) is also affected by paternal diet, BMI, and alcohol consumption, its outcomes could be improved by modifying factors that are dependent on male lifestyle choices and environmental factors. This review discusses the importance of epigenetic signatures in sperm-including DNA methylation, histone retention, and sncRNA-for sperm functionality, early embryo development, and offspring health. We also discuss the mechanisms by which paternal lifestyle and environmental factors (obesity, smoking, EDCs, and stress) may impact the sperm epigenome.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 2.0MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1186/s13148-025-01815-1
Authors
+ Agency for Administration of University and Research
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/01n4pqe45
- Grant:
- 2021-SGR-00900
- Publisher:
- BioMed Central
- Journal:
- Clinical Epigenetics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 7
- Place of publication:
- Germany
- Publication date:
- 2025-01-16
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-01-08
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1868-7083
- ISSN:
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1868-7075
- Pmid:
-
39819375
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Subtype:
-
Review
- Pubs id:
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2079089
- Local pid:
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pubs:2079089
- Deposit date:
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2025-01-22
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Akhatova et al
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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