Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Altered Sperm Histone Retention Sites

Female and male rats of an outbred female Sprague Dawley rats were administered daily intraperitoneal injections of vinclozolin (100 mg/kg BW/day), or DDT (25 mg/kg BW/day) or dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in oil (1 µl/kg BW/day vehicle). Treatment lineages are designated “control” or “vinclozolin” or “DDT” lineages. The gestating female rats treated were designated as the F0 generation. The offspring of the F0 generation rats were the F1. Non-littermate females and males aged 70-90 days from F1 generation of control, vinclozolin or DDT were bred to obtain F2 generation offspring. The F2 generation rats were similarly bred to obtain the F3 generation offspring. Individuals were maintained for 120 days and euthanized for sperm collection. Sperm from multiple individual rats was pooled into single samples. For the control samples, 2 pools were made using 6 animals and 1 pool with 5 animals. For the DDT samples, 3 pools were mady using 4 animals. For the Vinclozolin samples, 3 pools were made using 4 animals. Genomic DNA was isolated and histone chromatin immunoprecipitation with genomic DNA was performed. Each pooled sample received a separate index primer. NGS was performed at the WSU Spokane Genomics Core using Ilumina HiSeq 2500 with a PE50 application, with a read size of approximately 50 bp and approximately 35 million reads per pool.