Transgenerational transmission of maternal stimulatory experience in domesticated birds

What is it about?

Increasing evidence indicates that the stimulus response of a mother and the influence can inherit to several future generations through epigenetic modification in inbred animal models. However, the underlying biological processes and epigenetic basis remain largely unclear in non-inbred animals. In this study, using a domesticated bird model (with large population size), we present evidence that the stimulatory experience of the non-inbred hens can result in abnormal growth and fertility across three generations, epigenetic difference and transcriptional inheritance are also observed in the subsequent generations. Especially, bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide induced transcriptional transmission may have contributed to subfertility of the offspring. This finding provides insight into how immune stimulants and cytosine methylation contribute to epigenetically inheritable phenotypes in non-inbred animals.

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