Transgenerational endotoxin tolerance-like effect caused by paternal dietary Astragalus polysaccharides in broilers' jejunum.

To learn the nutri-epigenetics role of Astragalus polysaccharides (APS), we designed and studied the transgenerational effect of paternal dietary APS supplementation in chickens. 160 Avein breeder cocks were randomly allocated into 5 groups and fed with 0, 0.01, 0.1, 1, and 10 g/kg APS supplement, respectively. Sperm of breeder cocks was collected and used for hatching experiment to get broiler chickens when the cocks at 40-weeks-old. It showed that the paternal dietary 10 g/kg APS could transgenerational promote growth performance and jejunal tissue morphology of chickens. As to phenotypes, 10 g/kg APS treatment was chosen for molecular assays. In jejunal mucosa, 10 g/kg dietary APS didn't have any systematic effect on gene transcription of breeder cocks, whereas, the APS could induce transgenerational endotoxin tolerance-like effect through activating the IFNα-SOCS1 pathway in chicks. In both jejunum and sperm, the promoter methylation level of SOCS1 significantly reduced in 10 g/kg APS treatment versus the control group. In addition, the paternal APS significantly affected histone modification in promotor region of TRIF. Our data revealed that the paternal dietary APS supplementation could induce transgenerational endotoxin tolerance-like effect in jejunum mucosa of broiler chickens. And nutri-epigenetic modifications are crucial for this transgenerational effect.