Research: Environment impacts gene performance

By Elizabeth Daley, Bay City News Service

November 14, 2006

OAKLAND (BCN) - Doctors and scientists at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute say they have proven that a mother's diet during pregnancy can impact the health of her grandchildren.

However, the 1,000 mothers studied over two years were "viable yellow agouti mice," bred to be genetically identical, so while study author Dr. David Martin says this study shows environmental factors can affect a fetus for generations, he said he has no recommendations for soon-to-be mothers, other than maintaining good health during pregnancy.

The mice studied come from a variety bred to have an agouti gene that causes them to be fat, "yellow," and diabetic. According to Martin, the mice are also genetically identical.

Martin said genetically identical mice were chosen to make abnormal gene performance extremely apparent to scientists.

Scientists discovered that when they fed vitamin supplements to the mice during the middle of their pregnancies, their offspring and grandchildren were born fatter and darker with brownish coats, showing that the supplements impacted the agouti gene, which also controls diabetes.

"There is no change in the gene itself. There is a change in the behavior of the gene," said Martin, who believes this study shows "that environmental factors affect the fetus and the germ cells in that fetus."

"We don't know how many generations this effects," said Martin, excited to be part of a team that has proven genes functions are not stagnant.

"There is a prejudice in the scientific community that everything in a person is determined by their genes but this study shows that is not necessarily so," said Martin.

"There is already evidence that similar things can happen in human beings," said Martin, citing the Dutch famine of 1945 to 1946 as a famous example. "Germans cut off food to the Netherlands and the children born in this era were affected. Later in their lives they became obese," said Martin.

While Martin concedes that a similar study would be impossible in humans, saying, "not only would it be unethical it would take decades," the study, conducted by Martin and colleagues Kenneth Beckman and Drs. Jennifer Cropley and Catherine Suter, has illuminated the mystery of gene function.

The complete study can be found in the November issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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