Impacts of cannabinoid epigenetics on human development: reflections on Murphy et. al. ‘cannabinoid exposure and altered DNA methylation in rat and human sperm’ epigenetics 2018; 13: 1208-1221.

ABSTRACT

Recent data from the Kollins lab (‘Cannabinoid exposure and altered DNA methylation in rat and human sperm’ Epigenetics 2018; 13: 1208–1221) indicated epigenetic effects of cannabis use on sperm in man parallel those in rats and showed substantial shifts in both hypo- and hyper-DNA methylation with the latter predominating. This provides one likely mechanism for the transgenerational transmission of epigenomic instability with sperm as the vector. It therefore contributes important pathophysiological insights into the probable mechanisms underlying the epidemiology of prenatal cannabis exposure potentially explaining diverse features of cannabis-related teratology including effects on the neuraxis, cardiovasculature, immune stimulation, secondary genomic instability and carcinogenesis related to both adult and pediatric cancers. The potentially inheritable and therefore multigenerational nature of these defects needs to be carefully considered in the light of recent teratological and neurobehavioural trends in diverse jurisdictions such as the USA nationally, Hawaii, Colorado, Canada, France and Australia, particularly relating to mental retardation, age-related morbidity and oncogenesis including inheritable cancerogenesis. Increasing demonstrations that the epigenome can respond directly and in real time and retain memories of environmental exposures of many kinds implies that the genome-epigenome is much more sensitive to environmental toxicants than has been generally realized. Issues of long-term multigenerational inheritance amplify these concerns. Further research particularly on the epigenomic toxicology of many cannabinoids is also required.

KEYWORDS:

• Cannabinoids
• cannabidiol
• cannabinol
• histone modifications
• DNA methylation
• teratogensis
• autism spectrum disorder
• neurobehavioural teratology
• congenital cardiovascular malformations

Author Note

While this paper was in review our paper examining the epidemiological pattern and trends of Colorado birth defects of 2000-2014 and entitled “Cannabis Teratology Explains Current Patterns of Coloradan Congenital Defects: The Contribution of Increased Cannabinoid Exposure to Rising Teratological Trends” was accepted by the journal Clinical Pediatrics. It provides further details and confirmation on some of the issues discussed in the present paper. It also contains a detailed ecological investigation of the role of cannabidiol at the epidemiological level which confirms and extends the mechanistic observations and the quantitative remarks relating to the epidemiology of birth defects in Colorado made in the present manuscript. The interested reader may also wish to consult this resource.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Financial Disclosure

The authors have indicated they have no financial relationships to this article to disclose.