Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 104, Issue 14, Pages 5942-5946Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610410104
Keywords
endocrine disruption; vinclozolin; sexual selection; odor salience
Categories
Funding
- NIEHS NIH HHS [R01 ES012974, ES 07784, ES 12272, R21 ES012272, P30 ES007784, ES 012974] Funding Source: Medline
- NIMH NIH HHS [R21 MH068273, MH 068273] Funding Source: Medline
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Environmental contamination by endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC) can have epigenetic effects (by DNA methylation) on the germ line and promote disease across subsequent generations. In natural populations, both sexes may encounter affected as well as unaffected individuals during the breeding season, and any diminution in attractiveness could compromise reproductive success. Here we examine mate preference in male and female rats whose progenitors had been treated with the antiandrogenic fungicide vinclozolin. This effect is sex-specific, and we demonstrate that females three generations removed from the exposure discriminate and prefer males who do not have a history of exposure, whereas similarly epigenetically imprinted males do not exhibit such a preference. The observations suggest that the consequences of EDCs are not just transgenerational but can be transpopulational, because in many mammalian species, males are the dispersing sex. This result indicates that epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of EDC action represents an unappreciated force in sexual selection. Our observations provide direct experimental evidence for a role of epigenetics as a determinant factor in evolution.
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