ArticleNature medicine2018
Cold-induced epigenetic programming of the sperm enhances brown adipose tissue activity in the offspring.
Article in Nature medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 69 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 139 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of habitual cold exposure on brown adipose tissue activity in Arctic adults: a systematic review.International journal of circumpolar health · 2025Pooled it
- Toward the promotion of One Health - Part II: Interdisciplinary research cooperation between digital transformation and exposome.The journal of physiological sciences : JPS · 2026Review
- Legacy Effects of Early β-Adrenergic Stimulation Program Adipose Plasticity and Confer Metabolic Resilience in Obesity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Folate-dependent one-carbon metabolism controls meiotic and post-meiotic epigenome remodeling in the male germline.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Temperatures around conception affect metabolic health in adulthood.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Male obesity causes adipose mitochondrial dysfunction in FNature communications · 2026Article
- Hormones, heat, and health: a comprehensive review of sex-based differences in brown and beige fat biology.Biology of sex differences · 2025Review
- Germline epigenome editing identifies H3K9me3 as a mediator of intergenerational DNA methylation recovery in mice.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The role of immune responses and microbiota in adipose tissue homeostasis.The Journal of physiology · 2025Review
- Grandmaternal exercise improves the metabolic health of second-generation offspring generated from F1 females.Journal of sport and health science · 2025Article
- Beyond Genes: Mechanistic and Epidemiological Insights into Paternal Environmental Influence on Offspring Health.Current environmental health reports · 2025Review
- Cold-Induced DHRS4 Promotes Thermogenesis via Enhanced Fatty Acid β-Oxidation in Porcine Subcutaneous Adipocytes.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Brown fat thermogenesis and cold adaptation in humans.Journal of physiological anthropology · 2025Review
- Improving the odds of survival: transgenerational effects of infections.EMBO molecular medicine · 2025Review
- Pre-fertilization-origin preservation of brown fat-mediated energy expenditure in humans.Nature metabolism · 2025Article
- Intergenerational metabolic effects of cold exposure.Nature metabolism · 2025Article
- Type 2 diabetes impacts DNA methylation in human sperm.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Article
- Infrared thermography unveiled the variation of brown adipose tissue thermogenesis among East Asian adults.Physiological reports · 2025Article
- Predicting standardized uptake value of brown adipose tissue from CT scans using convolutional neural networks.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Cold exposure-induced plasma exosomes impair bone mass by inhibiting autophagy.Journal of nanobiotechnology · 2024Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Erratum issued
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
22 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent research has focused on environmental effects that control tissue functionality and systemic metabolism. However, whether such stimuli affect human thermogenesis and body mass index (BMI) has not been explored. Here we show retrospectively that the presence of brown adipose tissue (BAT) and the season of conception are linked to BMI in humans. In mice, we demonstrate that cold exposure (CE) of males, but not females, before mating results in improved systemic metabolism and protection from diet-induced obesity of the male offspring. Integrated analyses of the DNA methylome and RNA sequencing of the sperm from male mice revealed several clusters of co-regulated differentially methylated regions (DMRs) and differentially expressed genes (DEGs), suggesting that the improved metabolic health of the offspring was due to enhanced BAT formation and increased neurogenesis. The conclusions are supported by cell-autonomous studies in the offspring that demonstrate an enhanced capacity to form mature active brown adipocytes, improved neuronal density and more norepinephrine release in BAT in response to cold stimulation. Taken together, our results indicate that in humans and in mice, seasonal or experimental CE induces an epigenetic programming of the sperm such that the offspring harbor hyperactive BAT and an improved adaptation to overnutrition and hypothermia.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.