The influence of environmental factors on seminal material epigenetics

Abstract

Parental effects can influence offspring through mechanisms dependent and independent of genetic factors, including sperm. Sperm factors contribute to the modulation of offspring development through epigenetic modification of gametes under the influence of the environment. Epigenetic changes in gametes, determined by the environment at the molecular level, explain the ransmission of hereditary developmental potential across generations. The evolutionary implication of epigenetic variation as a source of genetic variation is very appealing because it reconciles two theoretical models of species evolution that often present themselves in opposing ways. First, evolution by epigenetic inheritance of the genome directly modified by environmental stressors, and second, evolution by continuous genetic variation within a population and selection at the extremes of the phenotype. The influence of environmental factors on the epigenetics of the semen is controlled by the genetic information, but also dictated by the epigenetic information contained in the spermatozoa