DNA methylation and DOHaD

Abstract

DNA methylation is presumably one of the molecular mechanisms underlying the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) because of the properties that the modification is actively made during the fetal stage and the methylation patterns are stably maintained afterward. In addition, it is known that aberrant regulation of DNA methylation cause growth and obesity symptoms and phenotypes. Mutations in DNMT3A, a de novo DNA methyltransferase, cause Tatton-Brown-Rahman syndrome, which is related to overgrowth and obesity. Dnmt3a heterozygous knockout mice and paraventricular hypothalamus-specific Dnmt3a knockout mice show obesity phenotypes. In this review, associations between DNA methylation and DOHaD are introduced, and the possibility that DNA methylation works as a molecular mechanism of DOHaD is discussed.