From the Tohoku University press release:<\/p>\n
It is no secret that genetic factors play a role in determining whether children have neurodevelopmental disorders<\/strong>. Maternal exposure to drugs and viral or bacterial illnesses can be detrimental too.<\/p>\n
However, a recent epidemiological survey of approximately 6 million people worldwide has revealed that advanced paternal age is associated with the development of neurodevelopmental disorders<\/strong>. In other words, the older the parent, the increased risk a child has of developing disorders such as autism, ADHD and other learning disabilities.<\/p>\n
A research team from the Department of Developmental Neuroscience at the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine has revealed further details about this phenomenon with their recent publication in\u00a0PLOS ONE<\/em>.<\/p>\n
The research team, led by doctoral student Misako Tatehana and Professor Noriko Osumi, performed immunohistochemical analysis of the testis in three-month-old mice before performing the same analysis on mice aged 12 months or older.<\/p>\n
Tatehana and her team analyzed histone proteins during the 12-step spermatogenesis process. Histone proteins undergo chemical modifications during spermatogenesis, thereby affecting gene expression. More specifically, the team looked at the seven methylations and one acetylation.<\/p>\n
They catalogued these as epigenetic markers<\/strong> — modifications that affect the expression of the gene without changing the DNA base sequence of the genome itself.<\/p>\n
Comparisons of the markers between the younger and older mice using imaging quantification techniques revealed that the latter had higher amounts of the modified histone protein, H3K79me3. A previous study by Professor Osumi found a correlation between the amount of H3K79me3 in sperm and abnormal speech communication in pups, making it a predictive marker of neural-developmental disorders.<\/p>\n
This new finding signals that paternal aging potentially affects neurodevelopment in humans<\/strong>. Further research on the matter hopes to develop greater diagnostic methods for disorders stemming from the risk of advanced paternal age.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the Tohoku University press release: It is no secret that genetic factors play a role in determining whether children have neurodevelopmental disorders. Maternal exposure to drugs and viral or… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":15010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[321,356],"tags":[16,490,432,234],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31486"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31560,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31486\/revisions\/31560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}