Effects of parental diet on the offspring's expression of genes associated with Alzheimer's disease
Boehly, Nick
Boehly, Nick
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2025-05-19
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Abstract
Previous studies have shown that nutrition plays a key role in influencing epigenetic markers. Additionally, changes in gene expression have been linked to the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, it is unclear how, and to what effect, nutrition influences changes in the epigenome. To that end, we divided mice into groups and exposed them to two different diets 1) a typical American diet (TAD) and 2) a Mediterranean diet (MD). Although it is known that diet can induce epigenetic modification, it is unknown if these changes are heritable. There has been little research that has focused on the offspring of the mice fed with these diets. Therefore, this experiment will focus on how the diets of parental mice affect their offspring's methylation and expression patterns of previously identified candidate genes linked to the development of AD. Prefrontal cortex samples from F1 mice, whose parents were exposed to MD or TAD, were removed, and the RNA was extracted and reverse transcribed into cDNA. This cDNA will display levels of expression by 10 distinct genes that have been linked to AD in previous studies. Our goal is to identify correlations between nutrition and the development of AD through modifications of gene expression. Moreover, this data will help illustrate how inheritance of epigenetic modifications can influence gene expression in subsequent generations.