Grant: Regional Partnership Program Doctoral Research Award

It has become increasingly evident that periods of poor nutrition during foetal development can not only affect that development directly but can also have long term consequences as well. Individuals that have suffered a nutritional insult during development are more likely to develop a number of diseases in adulthood such as diabetes and heart disease. This phenomenon, known as foetal programming , is recognized to occur but the mechanism by which environmental insults to the foetus can alter the long term health of the adult is not understood. One possibility is that the genes are not programmed correctly during development due to a lack of appropriate supplies at critical periods. One of the best understood mechanisms for controlling gene function is by the addition of a methyl group to the DNA and several recent studies have shown that DNA methylation in the foetus can be affected by maternal diet. We plan to use the Yucatan miniature pig to study the effect of alterations in the supply of methyl groups in the maternal and early piglet diet on the methylation of the DNA and on the incidence of adult onset diseases.