Axis 1, Team 4 | Epigenetic transgenerational effects promoted by toxicants

The environmental toxicants have recently been shown to promote an epigenetic transgenerational inheritance, which could lead to diseases and male infertility. We hypothesize that environmental toxicants could change histone modifications in germ line and these changes can be transferred to several generations via germline cells and affect many biological functions in subsequent generations of treated mice and in exposed human. Our recent data showed that embryonic exposures to atrazine (Hao et al, 2016) or chlordecone (Gely-Pernot et al, submitted) affects the germ cells, cause increase in meiotic defects affect RNA transcription in third generation after treatment. Embryonic exposure to both compound leads to change in histone H3K4me3 marks distribution, suggesting that H3K4me3 marks are essential for transgenerational inheritance. We are studying the impact of other epigenetic modifications in transgenerational inheritance.