Amazon.com lists over 8,000 items under the search term "fertility"

Quit Smoking Before Father's Day: Cigarette Smoke Alters DNA In Sperm - Genetic Damage Could Pass To Offspring

Catherine McDiarmid-Watt | Thursday, June 07, 2007 | 0 comments

The science has long been clear that smoking causes cancer, but new research shows that children could inherit genetic damage from a father who smokes.

Canadian researchers have demonstrated in mice that smoking can cause changes in the DNA sequence of sperm cells, alterations that could potentially be inherited by offspring. The results of their study are published in the June 1 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

"Here we are looking at male germline mutations, which are mutations in the DNA of sperm. If inherited, these mutations persist as irreversible changes in the genetic composition of off-spring." said Carole Yauk, Ph.D., lead author of the study and research scientist in the Mutagenesis Section of Health Canada's Environmental and Occupational Toxicology Division. "We have known that mothers who smoke can harm their fetuses, and here we show evidence that fathers can potentially damage offspring long before they may even meet their future mate."

Males, whether they are mouse or man, generate a constant supply of new sperm from self-renewing spermatogonial stem cells. Yauk, along with colleagues at Health Canada and McMaster University, studied the spermatogonial stem cells of mature mice that had been exposed to cigarette smoke for either six or 12 weeks to look for alterations in a specific stretch of repeated portions of DNA, called Ms6-hm, which does not contain any known genes. The "smoking" mice were exposed to two cigarettes per day, the equivalent - based on blood levels of tobacco by-products - of an average human smoker, according to research previously published by one of the study's co-authors.

Yauk and her colleagues found that the rate of Ms6-hm mutations in the smoking mice were 1.4 times higher than that of non-smoking mice at six weeks, and 1.7 times that of non-smoking mice at 12 weeks. "This suggests that damage is related to the duration of exposure, so the longer you smoke the more mutations accumulate and the more likely a potential effect may arise in the offspring," Yauk said.

According to Yauk, previous studies have shown that Ms6-hm and similar locations of non-coding DNA are sensitive to damage from radiation, mutagenic chemicals and intense industrial air particulate pollution. While the researchers did not specifically study the protein-coding regions of DNA where genes reside, Yauk notes that previous studies correlate mutations in non-coding regions with those in coding regions, and that some repetitive regions of DNA (not exam-ined in this study) are associated with genes.

"It stands to reason that mutations could also interfere with genes, but our ongoing research looks to clarify the severity of DNA damage throughout the genome," said Yauk. "So, while some men say they'll quit smoking after their child is born, this represents a good reason to quit well in advance of trying to conceive."

Among the next steps in gaining a better understanding of the germline genetic health conse-quences of smoking, Yauk and her colleagues plan to study how altered DNA manifests itself in the children and grandchildren of male mice that are exposed to firsthand smoke. They also plan to study the effects of secondhand smoke on male mice as well the possibility that the eggs of females are affected by smoke.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=73029&nfid=crss





Category: , ,

Catherine

About Catherine: I am mom to three grown sons, two grandchildren and two rescue dogs. After years of raising my boys as a single mom, I remarried a wonderful man who had never had a child of his own. Unexpectedly, I found myself pregnant at 49!
Sadly we lost that precious baby at 8 weeks, and decided to try again. Five more losses, turned down for donor egg, foster care and adoption due to my age and losses - we have accepted that there will be no more babies in our house.

Find Catherine on Google+ - Circle us on Google+ - Join us on Facebook - Follow us on Twitter

0 comments

WE LOVE COMMENTS!
Don't just sit there, reading this story or article - say something! Do you believe it? Do you think it is impossible? Do you wish it was you? Do you have a story to share (it might get published!)

NOTE: Comments are moderated - just to stop the spambots - and so may take up to a few hours to be approved.

Catherine reserves the right to review, edit, refuse or delete any comment.

Popular Posts