Paternal periconception metabolic health and offspring programming

Eid, Nader; Morgan, Hannah L.; Watkins, Adam J.

Abstract

The association between maternal metabolic status at the time of conception and subsequent embryogenesis and offspring development has been studied in detail. However, less attention has been given to the significance of paternal nutrition and metabolism in directing offspring health. Despite this disparity, emerging evidence has begun to highlight an important connection between paternal metabolic well-being, semen quality, embryonic development and ultimately adult offspring health. This has established a new component within the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis. Building on the decades of understanding and insight derived from the numerous models of maternal programming, attention is now becoming focused on defining the mechanisms underlying the links between paternal well-being, post-fertilisation development and offspring health. Understanding how the health and fitness of the father impact on semen quality is of fundamental importance for providing better information to intending fathers. Furthermore, assisted reproductive practices such as in vitro fertilisation rely on our ability to select the best quality sperm from a diverse and heterogeneous population. With considerable advances in sequencing capabilities, our understanding of the molecular and epigenetic composition of the sperm and seminal plasma, and their association with male metabolic health, has developed dramatically over recent years. This review will summarise our current understanding of how a fathers metabolic status at the time of conception can affect sperm quality, post-fertilisation embryonic and fetal development and offspring health.

Citation

Eid, N., Morgan, H. L., & Watkins, A. J. (2021). Paternal periconception metabolic health and offspring programming. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0029665121003736

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Acceptance Date: Oct 20, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Oct 27, 2021
• Publication Date: Oct 27, 2021
• Deposit Date: Oct 27, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 1, 2021
• Journal: Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
• Print ISSN: 0029-6651
• Electronic ISSN: 1475-2719
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0029665121003736
• Keywords: Nutrition and Dietetics; Medicine (miscellaneous)
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6539804
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-nutrition-society/article/abs/paternal-periconception-metabolic-health-and-offspring-programming/B049BAA41534BD717BB437F04EACAF93