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Reports
Paternal cranial irradiation induces distant bystander DNA damage in the germline and leads to epigenetic alterations in the offspring
Jan Tamminga, Igor Koturbash, Mike Baker, Kristy Kutanzi, Palak Kathiria, Igor P. Pogribny, Robert J. Sutherland and Olga Kovalchuk
volume 7 | issue 9
1 May 2008Pages: 1238 - 1245
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It is now well accepted that parental whole body irradiation causes transgenerational genome and epigenome instability in the offspring. The majority of human exposures to radiation, such as therapeutic and diagnostic irradiation, are localized and focused. The potential of localized body-part exposures to affect the germline and thus induce deleterious changes in the progeny has not been studied. To investigate whether or not the paternal cranial irradiation can exert deleterious changes in the protected germline, we studied the accumulation of DNA damage in the shielded testes tissue. Here we report that the localized paternal cranial irradiation results in a significant accumulation of unrepaired DNA lesions in sperm cells and leads to a profound epigenetic dysregulation in the unexposed progeny conceived a week after paternal exposure.
Authors
Jan Tamminga
University of Lethbridge; Alberta, Canada
Igor Koturbash
University of Lethbridge; Alberta, Canada
Mike Baker
University of Lethbridge; Alberta, Canada
Kristy Kutanzi
University of Lethbridge; Alberta, Canada
Palak Kathiria
University of Lethbridge; Alberta, Canada
Igor P. Pogribny
NCTR; Jefferson, AR
Robert J. Sutherland
University of Lethbridge; Alberta, Canada
Olga Kovalchuk
University of Lethbridge; Alberta, Canada