Environmental Stress Drives Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance through miR-212/132 Expression Alterations

Abstract

Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance (TEI) is a phenomenon that is deeply affected by the presence of environmental stress and disease. This phenomenon has been proposed to accelerate the evolution of many animal species. However, most current studies commonly focus on the C. elegantly which is frequently presented as deviating a lot from humans and the studies on mice still fail to propose a plausible explanation for the detailed mechanism of TEI in mammals. In this study, we primarily focused on the effect of environmental stress on mice and the possible TEI characteristics it may perform. The miR212/132 was chosen as the main target for studying and the role it play in the TEI is verified. The hippocampus-sperm communication mechanism of miR212/132 will also be focused and verified which revealed why the differential expression happen in the germ-line cell.