Ancestral stress programs sex-specific biological aging trajectories and non-communicable disease risk.

The incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is rising globally but their causes are generally not understood. Here we show that cumulative ancestral stress leads to premature aging and raises NCD risk in a rat population. This longitudinal study revealed that cumulative multigenerational prenatal stress (MPS) across four generations (F0-F3) raises age- and sex-dependent adverse health outcomes in F4 offspring. MPS accelerated biological aging processes and exacerbated sex-specific incidences of respiratory and kidney diseases, inflammatory processes and tumors. Unbiased deep sequencing of frontal cortex revealed that MPS altered expression of microRNAs and their target genes involved in synaptic plasticity, stress regulation, immune function and longevity. Multi-layer top-down deep learning metabolite enrichment analysis of urine markers revealed altered metabolic homeodynamics in MPS males. Thus, peripheral metabolic signatures may provide sensitive biomarkers of stress vulnerability and disease risk. Programming by MPS appears to be a significant determinant of lifetime mental health trajectories, physical wellbeing and vulnerability to NCDs through altered epigenetic regulation.

Conformational Preference and Fluorescence Response of a C-Linked C8-Biphenyl-Guanine Lesion in the NarI Mutational Hotspot: Evidence for Enhanced Syn Adduct Formation.

Aromatic chemical carcinogens can undergo enzymatic transformations to produce a range of electrophilic species that attach covalently to the C8-site of 2'-deoxyguanosine (dG) to afford C8-dG adducts. The most studied C8-dG adducts are formed from arylamines and contain a N-linkage separating the dG from the C8-aryl moiety. Other carcinogenic species result in direct aryl ring attachment to the dG moiety, resulting in C-linked adducts. The resulting C-linked adducts have reduced conformational flexibility compared to the corresponding N-linked C8-dG adducts, which can alter their orientation in the DNA duplex. Described herein are structural studies of a fluorescent C-linked 4-fluorobiphenyl-dG (FBP-dG) that has been incorporated into the reiterated G3-postion of the 12-mer NarI sequence and those containing other 5'-flanking nucleobases. FBP-dG displays a strong preference for adopting a syn conformation in the fully paired NarI duplex to produce an intercalated structure that exhibits stacking interactions between the C-linked biphenyl and the flanking bases. FBP-dG is also shown to significantly stabilize the slippage mutagenic intermediate (SMI) duplex containing the lesion and 5'-flanking base within a 2-base bulge. FBP-dG exhibits fluorescence sensitivity to SMI duplex formation that can readily distinguish it from the fully paired duplex. Molecular dynamics simulations and optical spectroscopy for the NarI oligonucleotides containing the C-linked FBP-dG predict increased rigidity of the biphenyl in the syn conformation. The greater propensity to generate the promutagenic syn conformation for the C-linked FBP-dG adduct compared to the N-linked 4-aminobiphenyl-dG adduct (ABP-dG) suggests greater mutagenicity for the C-linked analogue. These results highlight the effect of the adduct linkage type on the conformational properties of adducted DNA. The turn-on emission response of FBP-dG in the SMI duplex may be a powerful tool for monitoring SMI formation in the NarI sequence upon synthesis with DNA polymerases.