Aberrant DNA Methylation Mediates the Transgenerational Risk of Metabolic and Chronic Disease Due to Maternal Obesity and Overnutrition

Maternal obesity is a rapidly evolving universal epidemic leading to acute and long-term medical and obstetric health issues, including increased maternal risks of gestational diabetes, hypertension and pre-eclampsia, and the future risks for offspring’s predisposition to metabolic diseases. Epigenetic modification, in particular DNA methylation, represents a mechanism whereby environmental effects impact on the phenotypic expression of human disease. Maternal obesity or overnutrition contributes to the alterations in DNA methylation during early life which, through fetal programming, can predispose the offspring to many metabolic and chronic diseases, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, obesity, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. This review aims to summarize findings from human and animal studies, which support the role of maternal obesity in fetal programing and the potential benefit of altering DNA methylation to limit maternal obesity related disease in the offspring.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Genes

• Publication date

  2021-10-20

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/genes12111653PMID 34828259PMCID 8624316
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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