The mother's diet during the perinatal period is the most important early environmental factor that, through epigenetic modifications, can cause changes in gene expression and, as a consequence, the phenotype of the offspring. Employees of the Institute of Higher Inspectorate and Scientific Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences were the first to show that increased DNA methylation in the early stages of ontogenesis using a maternal diet enriched with methyl supplements (MAD) suppresses the manifestation of genetic absence epilepsy and comorbid depression in the offspring of WAG/Rij rats . The beneficial phenotypic effect of maternal MOD was accompanied by increased expression of pathogenetically significant genes - the hcn1 ion channel gene and the DNA methyltransferase 1 (dnmt1) gene in the somatosensory cortex and hippocampus, as well as the hcn1, dnmt1 and tyrosine hydroxylase (th) genes in the nucleus accumbens. The therapeutic effect of maternal MOD was similar to that of ethosuximide, the first-choice drug for the treatment of absence epilepsy. It is assumed that maternal MOD can serve as a new preventive therapeutic strategy for epigenetic correction of absence epilepsy and comorbid depression in offspring.


 
Статья опубликована в январе 2023 года в журнале Diagnostics:
 
https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13030398