It is predicted that Japan and European Union will soon experience appreciable decreases
in their populations due to persistently low total fertility rates (TFR) below replacement level …

BACKGROUND Modern reproductive behavior in most developed countries is characterized
by delayed parenthood. Older gametes are generally less fertile, accumulating and …

Obesity is a heritable disorder, with children of obese fathers at higher risk of developing
obesity. Environmental factors epigenetically influence somatic tissues, but the contribution …

Background Developmental programming of the embryo is controlled by genetic information
but also dictated by epigenetic information contained in spermatozoa. Lifestyle and …

The function of sperm is to safely transport the haploid paternal genome to the egg
containing the maternal genome. The subsequent fertilization leads to transmission of a new …

Behavioural traits in mammals are influenced by environmental factors, which can interact
with the genome and modulate its activity by complex molecular interplay. Environmental …

Epigenetic information can be inherited through the mammalian germline and represents a
plausible transgenerational carrier of environmental information. To test whether …

In higher eukaryotes, histone methylation is involved in maintaining cellular identity during
somatic development. As most nucleosomes are replaced by protamines during …

Early vertebrate embryos must achieve totipotency and prepare for zygotic genome
activation (ZGA). To understand this process, we determined the DNA methylation (DNAme) …

Recent evidence demonstrates a role for paternal aging on offspring disease susceptibility. It
is well established that various neuropsychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, autism, etc.) …