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Atlanta, GA | Posted: May 5, 2011
Dr. Greg Gibson (Professor, School of Biology) is an author on two recent publications in the journal PLoS ONE. The impact of parental health and early life stresses on disease is receiving more and more attention as epidemiologists have recognized that infant growth already influences the risk of asthma, obesity, and heart disease.
Professor Gibson's recent publications use integrative genomic tools to investigate the genetic basis of these influences. In a study he led while in Brisbane, before arriving at Georgia Tech, blood gene expression profiles were measured in pregnant mothers and their newborn infants. A surprisingly strong influence of the mother's immune status on that of her child was observed, and the data shows that maternal obesity, normal body weight, as well as gestational diabetes, all affect metabolic gene expression. The results provide the first molecular support for the so-called "thrifty phenotype" (or "mismatch") hypothesis, that maternal health impacts developing fetuses by changing gene expression.
The second study was a collaboration with a group led by Drs Nasser al Daghri and Omar al Attas at the King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where obesity and diabetes are reaching very high levels. It shows that a combination of metabolic hormones called adipocytokines are expressed together in a certain way that is also transmitted from parents to their children. The main profile of these adipocytokines has been known to correlate with adult obesity, but this study shows that it is also associated with overweight already in young children, if anything more strongly than in adults. The next step is to understand whether and how regulation of the genes is changing in contemporary society, contributing to the early onset of chronic diseases.
The full citations of the articles are:
Mason E, Tronc G, Nones K, Matigian N, Kim J, Aronow BJ, Wolfinger RD, Wells C, Gibson G.
PLoS One. 2010 Dec 31;5(12):e14479.
and
Parent-Offspring Transmission of Adipocytokine Levels and Their Associations with Metabolic Traits
Al-Daghri NM, Al-Attas OS, Alokail M, Alkharfy K, Yakout S, Sabico S, Gibson G, Chrousos GP, Kumar S
PLoS One. 2011 Apr 7;6(4):e18182.
