Parental exposure, i.e. germ cell exposure to radiation and chemicals, increased the incidence of
tumors and malformations in the offspring, and the germ-line alterations that cause
cancer are transmissible to further generations. However,
tumor incidences were 100-fold higher than those of ordinary mouse mutations and there were apparent strain differences in the types of induced
tumors. In human, higher risk of
leukemia is reported in the children of fathers who had been exposed to
radionuclides at the nuclear reprocessing plants or to diagnostic doses of radiation. However, these findings in mice and men have not been confirmed in the children of atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Another important finding was that germ-line exposure was very weakly tumorigenic by itself. However, the transmissible alterations caused persistent
hypersensitivity to
tumor induction in the offspring, e.g. enhanced by postnatal treatment with
tumor promoting/carcinogenic agents. The above results suggest that transmissible alterations might be imprinted in germ cells for the future development of
cancer by the postnatal environment. Many gene loci concerning immunological, biochemical and physiological function might be involved, and the cumulative changes in such genes may slightly elevate or enhance
tumor incidences, although mutations of tumor suppressor genes such as p53 were also detected in some offspring and
genomic instability may modify
tumor occurrence in transgenerational manner. In fact, Gene Chip analysis showed suppression and/or over-expression of many functional genes rather than
cancer-related genes in the preconceptionally irradiated
cancer prone progeny.