Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance ㏌ “Kameni Yusho”
Toru Shibuya, Yukiharu Horiya and Tadashi Fujino
“Kanemi Yusho” was the largest food pollution at Japan in 1968, and it has left a big mark on the generation who ingested Kanemi rice bran oil. The cause was the transformation of heated PCBs into the highly poisonous polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs). Recently, it has been suggested that similar diseases are occurred at a high frequency in the second and third generations of patients. “The Kanemi Yusho Study Group, Japan” has begun to investigate the disease in later generations. We have begun our own research based on the hypothesis that “transgenerational epigenetics inheritance (TEI)” is involved in these generational problems. TEI is a phenomenon in which some toxic effects are observed even in generations not exposed to the causative agent, and is attributed to the transgenerational transmission of epigenetic modifications in the germline cells. In the future, we plan to conduct epigenetic analysis in the cells of these individuals.
Key words:
“Kanemi Yusho”, Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI), Polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs)