Drosophila melanogaster – an emerging model to study transgenerational effects of parental smoking

Health consequences of tobacco smoking are widely studied and well understood. Much less analyzed, but even more considerable are health effects which may occur in progeny, not only caused by prenatal cigarette smoke exposure, but also due to transgenerational inheritance. As prenatal exposure to (grand) maternal cigarette smoking is associated with a higher risk for childhood asthma, mechanisms of transgenerational inheritance are likewise responsible for the development of the disease. So far mouse models of tobacco smoke-related airway diseases have been used for transgenerational studies. However, they are l…