Maternal Diet During Pregnancy and COVID-19 Susceptibility of Offspring: The “Thrifty Phenotype Hypothesis” Connection

Abstract

There isaccumulating evidence suggesting that ACE2, the host cell receptor for the spike (S) protein of the SARS-CoV-2, mediates viral entry and infection, is under epigenetic control. Here, we discuss studies suggesting a nutritional strategy for down-regulating ACE2 expression in tissues of offspring through the phenom-enon of maternal epigenomic reprogramming mediated by maternal diet. The "thrifty hypothesis" was first proposed by Hales and Barker,which posits that spe-cific genes are programmed based on early-life experience to promote efficient fat deposition and storage in adulthood. Our analysis of the proposed mechanism for "early life programming" in this paper vianutritional modulation of histone acety-lation and DNA methylation goes beyond the physiological consequence of boost-ing the innate cellular resistance to a viral transmission. During the pandemic,where there is still no specific antiviral drug or a widely disseminated vaccine for COVID-19, we hypothesize that an epigenomic nutritionapproachmay be a prac-tical approach to help mitigate viral transmission offspring.

Keywords

• sars-cov-2
• covid-19
• ace2
• maternal reprogramming
• nutrition epigenomics
• perinatal
• plant-based diet
• high-fat diet effects
• thrifty phenotype hypothesis