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Nutrition's Role in Genetics is Studied

Posted on: Tuesday, 8 August 2006, 12:00 CDT

U.S. scientists say expectant mothers might someday be given a personalized menu of foods to eat during pregnancy, based upon genetic makeup.

The researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis used transparent fish embryos to discover how genes and diet interact to cause birth defects.

By the time most women know they are pregnant, the development of the fetus' organs is essentially complete, said Bryce Mendelsohn, co-author of the study and a student in the university's Medical Scientist Training Program. Since we currently do not understand the interaction between genetics and nutrition, the goal of this research was to understand how the lack of a specific nutrient -- in this case copper -- interacts with an embryo's genetics during early development.

Mendelsohn and his collaborators -- Associate Professor of Genetics Stephen Johnson and graduate student Chunyue Yin -- studied the impact of copper metabolism on the development of zebrafish, a vertebrate that develops similarly to humans.

Zebrafish have become staples of genetic research because the transparent embryos grow outside of the mother's body, which allows development to be easily observed.

The study's results appear in the August issue of Cell Metabolism.

Source: United Press International

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