"I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't use chemo," he said. "In
fact, I would suggest that you probably should use the chemo. I'm just
saying that there are some preventative things that may need to be put
in place before you use the chemo if possible."
‘Epigenetic changes in the sperm of men who underwent chemotherapy in their teens have been documented by a Washington State University researcher.’
Skinner is a leading expert in the field of epigenetics, which
looks at changes in how genetic information is passed between
generations. While certain environmental exposures can leave DNA
sequences unaffected, he has documented how epigenetic
change - alterations of small chemical groups attached to the
DNA - affects how genes are turned on and off. His earlier work has found
epigenetic effects from a host of environmental toxicants, connecting
plastics, pesticides, fungicide, dioxin and hydrocarbons to diseases and
abnormalities as many as four generations later.
Reproducible pattern of molecular changes
For the current study, published in the online journal
PLOS One,
Skinner collaborated with researchers at the Seattle Children's
Research Institute and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. They
include colleague Margarett Shnorhavorian, surgical director of the
differences in sex development program at Seattle Children's and
associate professor of urology at the University of Washington.
She obtained sperm from 18 men who had undergone chemotherapy as
adolescents and 18 untreated men whose sperm served as a control.The
sample size was small, Skinner acknowledged, but all the sperm from the
former chemotherapy patients had a similar pattern of molecular changes.
"It was very reproducible," he said. "That in and of itself was very surprising to me."
Next step: Effects in offspring
Skinner said, "The testes take 75 days to make sperm, which remains in the body for 20
or 30 more days. So for effects to be seen 10 years later, cells in the
testes must be "permanently altered," he said.
Skinner and his colleagues plan to investigate what effects, if
any, these changes are having on subsequent generations. Shnorhavorian
has received funding to look at the epidemiology of chemotherapy
patients and their offspring, and Skinner hopes to look at similar
changes in rodents.
Previous rodent studies have seen epigenetic alterations leading
to prostate and breast cancers, kidney disease and decreases in male and
female fertility in second and third generations, Skinner said.
"Those are things that I would predict, but I have no idea in this situation if that's the case," he said.
Skinner is founder of the WSU Center for Reproductive Biology.
His groundbreaking work has been highlighted in documentaries by the
BBC, Smithsonian and PBS. He became a member of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science in 2012 and received a Smithsonian
Ingenuity award in 2013.
Source: Eurekalert
