Paternal hypoxia exposure primes offspring for increased hypoxia resistance

BACKGROUND: In a time of rapid environmental change, understanding how the challenges experienced by one generation can influence the fitness of future generations is critically needed. Using tolerance assays and transcriptomic and methylome approaches, we use zebrafish as a model to investigate cross-generational acclimation to hypoxia. RESULTS: We show that short-term paternal exposure to hypoxia endows offspring with greater tolerance to acute hypoxia. We detected two hemoglobin genes that are significantly upregulated by more than 6-fold in the offspring of hypoxia exposed males. Moreover, the offspring which maintained equilibrium the longest showed greatest upregulation in hemoglobin expression. We did not detect differential methylation at any of the differentially expressed genes, suggesting that other epigenetic mechanisms are responsible for alterations in gene expression. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our findings suggest that an epigenetic memory of past hypoxia exposure is maintained and that this environmentally induced information is transferred to subsequent generations, pre-acclimating progeny to cope with hypoxic conditions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12915-022-01389-x.