Dataset Information

Offspring telomere length in the long lived Alpine swift is negatively related to the age of their biological father and foster mother.

ABSTRACT: A growing body of studies is showing that offspring telomere length (TL) can be influenced by the age of their parents. Such a relationship might be explained by variation in TL at conception (gamete effect) and/or by alteration of early growth conditions in species providing parental care. In a long-lived bird with bi-parental care, the Alpine swift (Apus melba), we exchanged an uneven number of 2 to 4-day-old nestlings between pairs as part of a brood size manipulation. Nestling TL was measured at 50 days after hatching, which allowed investigation of the influence of the age of both their biological and foster parents on offspring TL, after controlling for the manipulation. Nestling TL was negatively related to the age of their biological father and foster mother. Nestling TL did not differ between enlarged and reduced broods. These findings suggest that offspring from older males were fertilized by gametes with shorter telomeres, presumably due to a greater cell division history or a longer accumulation of damage, and that older females may have provided poorer parental care to their offspring.

SUBMITTER: Criscuolo F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5627168 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Offspring telomere length in the long lived Alpine swift is negatively related to the age of their biological father and foster mother.

Criscuolo François F Zahn Sandrine S Bize Pierre P

Biology letters 20170901 9

A growing body of studies is showing that offspring telomere length (TL) can be influenced by the age of their parents. Such a relationship might be explained by variation in TL at conception (gamete effect) and/or by alteration of early growth conditions in species providing parental care. In a long-lived bird with bi-parental care, the Alpine swift (<i>Apus melba</i>), we exchanged an uneven number of 2 to 4-day-old nestlings between pairs as part of a brood size manipulation. Nestling TL was ...[more]

PMID: 28904178

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundNumerous intrauterine factors may affect the offspring's growth during childhood. We aimed to explore if maternal and paternal prenatal lipid, apolipoprotein (apo)B and apoA1 levels are associated with offspring weight, length, and body mass index from 6 weeks to eight years of age. This has previously been studied to a limited extent.MethodsThis parental negative control study is based on the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study and uses data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. We included 713 mothers and fathers with or without self-reported hypercholesterolemia and their offspring. Seven parental metabolites were measured by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and offspring weight and length were measured at 12 time points. Data were analyzed by linear spline mixed models, and the results are presented as the interaction between parental metabolite levels and offspring spline (age).ResultsHigher maternal total cholesterol (TC) level was associated with a larger increase in offspring body weight up to 8 years of age (0.03 ≤ Pinteraction ≤ 0.04). Paternal TC level was not associated with change in offspring body weight (0.17 ≤ Pinteraction ≤ 0.25). Higher maternal high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and apoA1 levels were associated with a lower increase in offspring body weight up to 8 years of age (0.001 ≤ Pinteraction ≤ 0.005). Higher paternal HDL-C and apoA1 levels were associated with a lower increase in offspring body weight up to 5 years of age but a larger increase in offspring body weight from 5 to 8 years of age (0.01 ≤ Pinteraction ≤ 0.03). Parental metabolites were not associated with change in offspring height or body mass index up to 8 years of age (0.07 ≤ Pinteraction ≤ 0.99).ConclusionsMaternal compared to paternal TC, HDL-C, and apoA1 levels were more strongly and consistently associated with offspring body weight during childhood, supporting a direct intrauterine effect.

Dataset Information

Offspring telomere length in the long lived Alpine swift is negatively related to the age of their biological father and foster mother.

Publications

Offspring telomere length in the long lived Alpine swift is negatively related to the age of their biological father and foster mother.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets