Father's lifestyle could affect DNA of multiple generations

Mutations are changes in the genetic sequence, and they are a main cause of diversity among organisms. These changes occur at many different levels, and they can have widely differing consequences. For mutations to affect an organism's descendants, they must: 1) occur in cells that produce the next generation, and 2) affect the hereditary material.

A new research has suggesed that paternal exposures to smoking can raise the number of mutations, that can be passed to the coming generations. These mutations can be inherited, even if those mutations occurred before conception. These findings were published in the July 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal.

These findings also show that mutations in the germ-line are present in all cells of the children, including their own germ cells. This means that a father's lifestyle has the potential to affect the DNA of multiple generations and not just his immediate offspring.

Roger Godschalk, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Toxicology and the School for Nutrition, Toxicology and Metabolism at Maastricht University in the Netherlands looked to two groups of families (father, mother and child) from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study for their findings. They choose income as a criterion because it generally correlates to lifestyle choices of the parents. One group had a low yearly income, whereas the other had a relatively high yearly income.

For instance, fathers in the low income group were more often cigarette smokers than fathers in the high income group. Researchers looked for DNA mutations in the children and found that they were more frequent in the group with low income fathers than in the group of high income fathers.

"We've known for a very long time that preventive care among expectant mothers is critical to the health and well-being of their children," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. These results suggest that the parents living conditions before conception may directly impact the health of their children.