UNews - gene expression

Dads' impact on kids' development deeper than we think

trevor.kenney — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 17:18:50 +0000

We all know a baby’s health is inextricably linked to the lifestyle of the mother prenatally and while pregnant. But what’s less understood is the impact of the essential but often neglected half of this reproductive equation — the father, and his own preconception behaviours.

Dr. Robbin Gibb studies what happens to a father’s offspring when he is exposed to chronic stress right before they are conceived.

It’s a topic being investigated by Dr. Robbin Gibb, a researcher and professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge who is interested in how a male’s pre-reproduction lifestyle affects his kids’ epigenetics, or the expression of their genes. Specifically, she is studying the influence of paternal stress and the usage of alcohol and prescription drugs during this time period. Her findings so far confirm dads play a much bigger role than we ever imagined in a baby’s brain development and behaviour.

“We have this huge focus on mothers and their babies, and I think that’s appropriate, but why on earth don’t we ever consider what happens to the father preconception? It turns out the father’s lifestyle during this time has a huge influence on the outcomes and success of their children,” says Gibb, whose research is funded by a five-year, $120,000 grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Gibb has studied what happens to a father’s offspring when he is exposed to chronic stress right before they are conceived. Rat experiments she performed at her lab in U of L’s Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience showed the babies were more anxious, and also had a harder time performing certain tasks. Their brains also had significant differences in DNA methylation, a process that affects how our genes regulate development and disease. Her study, which was published last year in Neuroscience, theorized chronic stress modified the epigenetic expression of genes in maturing sperm, which in turn shaped gene expression and development in the embryo.

In another of Gibb’s studies, led by graduate student Allonna Harker, rats born to fathers who had consumed excessive alcohol for about a month preconception had lifelong issues with motor development and anxiety. Interestingly, when these same fathers were then deprived of alcohol for 45 days and mated again, their babies had worse anxiety and motor skills than those in the preceding litter.

“None of the sperm that were produced at the time when the dad was on alcohol would have been there, so we think we must have changed sperm precursors, so that they still carried instructions to the egg that affected gene expression in their offspring,” says Gibb on the initial findings of this ongoing study.

Finally, Gibb is also researching the impact on offspring of a father’s preconception consumption of the antidepressant Prozac. When male rats were given the drug for 45 days before mating, their offspring showed more anxious behaviour. Her preliminary results show this anxiety manifesting in the babies’ early stages of life; she will now explore if it persists throughout their lifespan.

A mother of two, Gibb had long been curious her and her husband’s impact on their children’s development, which is what sparked her interest in this research area. She hopes her findings compel medical professionals and policymakers to take a more inclusive approach to counselling services and public awareness campaigns geared at aspiring parents.

“Fathers need to be embraced as an important element in family. That means we need parental institutes and resources, not just maternal ones,” Gibb says. “We need to advise prospective fathers in the same way as we do the mothers about how their lifestyle can influence their babies.”

Students earn significant traineeships

trevor.kenney — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:19:51 +0000

A total of five current ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge students, under the leadership of faculty supervisors Dr. Bryan Kolb, Dr. Robert MacDonald and Dr. Gerlinde Metz, have been named as successful applicants for the Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions (formerly AHFMR) Hotchkiss Brain Institute Provincial Program on Perinatal Determinants of Brain and Mental Health 2010-2011 Traineeships.

Just 11 traineeships were approved by Alberta Innovates this year and the U of L managed to garner five of those 11 positions. As well, alumnus Dr. Simon Spanswick (MSc '05), currently working on post-doctoral studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, was awarded another traineeship.

Following are brief descriptions of the successful applicants and their proposed research initiatives.

Robin Keeley (Dr. Robert McDonald) Chronic THC Administration During Puberty and its Effect on Behaviour and Brain Morphology in Adulthood

Keeley is starting her second year as a doctoral candidate at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge where her thesis will address the effect of chronic recreational drug use during puberty on adult male and female rat behaviour and brain morphology. Focusing on THC, the active component of marijuana, Keeley intends to evaluate gender-specific differences in adult cognition, and brain morphology and electrophysiology in two rat strains following pubertal THC exposure. She will also look at the priming effect of THC as a "gateway drug" whereby increased exposure may induce individuals to develop a propensity towards consuming more rewarding and harmful recreational drugs such as amphetamine.

Dr. Richelle Mychasiuk (Dr. Bryan Kolb) The Effect of Cumulative Experience on Brain Plasticity

In a continuation of the work presented in her doctoral thesis, Mychasiuk will investigate the hypothesis that early experiences alter experience-dependent plasticity later in life. She will conduct anatomical studies and investigate gene methylation and gene expression in brains of rats that have been exposed as pups to a variety of early experiences such as manipulated play partners and play-time, separation stress, or complex environments, followed by nicotine exposure and sensitization, complex housing, or elevated platform stress as juveniles and adults. By focusing on studies of cumulative experiences, Mychasiuk's work will contribute to a better understanding of how brain development is affected, and continues to be affected, by early experiences.

Dr. Farshad Nemati (Dr. Bryan Kolb) Neuroplasticity in Adolescence

Nemati (PhD '08) will continue his studies on neural plasticity that were initially funded under the 2009-2010 AI-HS/HBI Program. In his previous work, Nemati discovered differential neural reorganization and behavioural recovery in adult rats that had received brain injuries at different times in the lifespan. He will now look at the effect of long-term vs. short-term administration of nicotine alone or in combination with complex housing as an experience in rat subjects at two different ages. His results will provide insight into the neural, cognitive and behavioural responses of adults who experience drug addiction as adolescents.

Dr. Fabiola Zucchi (Dr. Gerlinde Metz) Brain MicroRNA (miR) Expression in Response to Prenatal Stress

Zucchi has been successful in obtaining a second year of funding as a post-doctoral fellow from the AI-HS/HBI Program. Zucchi achieved several milestones in her first year of funding towards determining the effects of prenatal and adult stress on brain gene and miR expression, as well as the ability to recover from stroke. She plans to continue the studies of adverse experience on miR expression and gene regulation by exploring molecular correlates of stress at the epigenetic, genetic and behavioural levels. Another objective of her work is to evaluate possible intervention strategies such as massage therapy in reducing the impact of prenatal stress and improving motor recovery after stroke.

Muhammad Arif (Dr. Bryan Kolb) Developmental Factors Related to Drug Addiction

Arif has been awarded funding for a second time under the AI-HS/HBI Program. He previously determined that pre- and postnatal tactile stimulation during development reduced amphetamine-induced behavioural sensitization and, hence, may play a protective role against drug addiction. Building upon the discovery that tactile stimulation has a positive influence on cognitive and social behaviours, he plans to investigate structural plasticity associated with experience (e.g. tactile stimulation) and drugs in modulating brain regions (e.g. reward circuit) with the aim of developing new treatment strategies and public policies to ameliorate drug addiction.

Alumnus Gregg wins prestigious prize

trevor.kenney — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:35:47 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus, Dr. Christopher Gregg (BSc '98), captured the 2010 Grand Prize in the annual international competition for The Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology.

Gregg is being recognized for his outstanding contributions to research on how the parental origin of a gene affects its expression in the developing and adult brains of offspring.

"My interests are now focused on determining whether maternal and/or paternal gene expression programs in offspring are altered according to stresses and environmental effects experienced by parents," says Gregg, a postdoctoral fellow in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Department at Harvard ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. "This is an exciting possibility that could reveal pathways that prepare offspring for the environment into which they will be born."

As the grand prize winner, Gregg receives $25,000 from Eppendorf, and his essay, Parental Control over the Brain, will be published in the November issue of the journal Science. Gregg will join the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Utah as an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy next year.

In his award-winning essay, Gregg explains how he and his team at Harvard sort out how mother- and father-specific genetic cues influence their offspring's brains. Gregg describes how the team developed a genome-wide approach to study these parental effects on different regions of the brain during various developmental stages.

Through experiments with mice, they document how rare, epigenetic marks on certain maternal and paternal genes—known as genome imprints—affect the timing of gene expression in the next generation. For example, these researchers have identified approximately 553 genes that are subject to these parental genome imprints at day 15 of embryonic development and just 372 genes under the influence of such parental effects in the adult brain.

"Genes that preferentially express one parent's copy can be especially vulnerable to the presence of a mutation, because the other copy that doesn't have the mutation isn't being expressed, so there is no backup," says Gregg. "This phenomenon is especially obvious in males with diseases involving mutations on the X chromosome. In females, these diseases tend to be less severe, because females have two X chromosomes, but males have only one."

His findings reveal some of the specific parental effects associated with brain development and diseases, such as multiple sclerosis—and they provide a roadmap for future research in this field.

"I believe these effects have major relevance for our understanding of brain evolution, function, and disease," says Gregg.

The Eppendorf and Science Prize in Neurobiology recognizes outstanding international neurobiological research based on current methods and advances in the field of molecular and cell biology by a young early-career scientist.

Investing In Mental Health

trevor.kenney — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:43:06 +0000

Just 11 traineeships were approved by Alberta Innovates this year and the
U of L managed to garner five of those 11 positions. As well, alumnus Dr. Simon Spanswick (MSc '05), currently working on post-doctoral studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, was awarded another traineeship.

Following are brief descriptions of the successful applicants and their proposed research initiatives.

Robin Keeley (Dr. Robert McDonald) Chronic THC Administration During Puberty and its Effect on Behaviour and Brain Morphology in Adulthood

Dr. Richelle Mychasiuk (Dr. Bryan Kolb) The Effect of Cumulative Experience on Brain Plasticity

Dr. Farshad Nemati (Dr. Bryan Kolb) Neuroplasticity in Adolescence

Dr. Fabiola Zucchi (Dr. Gerlinde Metz) Brain MicroRNA (miR) Expression in Response to Prenatal Stress

Muhammad Arif (Dr. Bryan Kolb) Developmental Factors Related to Drug Addiction

UNews - gene expression

Dads' impact on kids' development deeper than we think

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Students earn significant traineeships

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Alumnus Gregg wins prestigious prize

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