Nutritional Programming and Effect of Ancestor Diet in Birds
Résumé
Phenotype variability depends on genetics and environmental factors. Improving
farm animal performances relies on genetic variability, but the possible improvement
of selection schemes taking into account nongenetic transgenerational
inheritance has become a topic of choice. Indeed, the parental diet may influence
the adult phenotype of the offspring, and more and more studies suggest that
information acquired from environmental exposures may be transmitted across
generations. In this review, we focus on nongenetic inheritance of diet effects in
birds, either as parental effect, that is, “nutritional programming,” or through the
transmission of information across several generations, via “transgenerational
epigenetic inheritance.” Compared to mammal models with regard to their closer
proximity with humans, bird models have the added benefit to minimize maternal
confounding effects by a direct manipulation of the egg content.