Maternal diet induces persistent DNA methylation changes in the muscle of beef calves

Maternal nutrition during pregnancy can induce epigenetic alterations in the fetal genome, such as changes in DNA methylation. It remains unclear whether these epigenetic alterations due to changes in maternal nutrition are transitory or persist over time. As such, this study was specially designed to determine whether DNA methylation modifications induced by maternal nutrition persist over time. Beef cows were randomly assigned to either a control or a methionine-rich diet from -30 to +90 d, relative to the beginning of the breeding season. The methylome of loin muscle from the same bull calves (n=9-10 per maternal diet) at 30 and 200 days of age were evaluated using whole-genome bisulfite sequencing.