Abstract
Recent studies have suggested that maternal high-fat (HF) diet caused inflammation changes in adipose tissue; however, it remains unclear if maternal diet intervention before pregnancy rescues such effects in offspring. To address this question, female mice were continued on a normal-fat (NF group), or a HF diet (HF group) or transitioned from a HF diet to a NF diet at 1 (H1N group), 5 (H5N group) or 9 weeks (H9N group) prior to pregnancy. Among the three intervention groups, the H9N offspring displayed less and steady body weight gain, and maintained glucose tolerance, whereas the H1N and H5N offspring showed exacerbate these phenotypes. The H1N and H5N, but not the H9N offspring, displayed adipocyte hypertrophy associated with increased expression of genes involved in fat deposition. The H1N and H5N, but not the H9N adipose tissue, displayed increased macrophage infiltration with enhanced expression of inflammatory cytokine genes. In addition, overactivation of the NF-κB and the JNK signaling were observed in the H1N adipose tissue. Overall, our study showed that a long-term but not a short- or medium-term diet intervention before pregnancy released offspring adipose tissue inflammation induced by maternal HF diet, which adds details in our understanding how the maternal environment either promotes or discourages onset of disease in offspring. Clinically, this study is of great value for providing evidence in the design of clinical trials to evaluate the urgently required intervention strategies to minimize the intergenerational cycle of obesity.
Highlights
To date, approximately 41 million children globally are affected by childhood obesity, an increase of roughly 9 million children since the year 1990 [1,2,3,4,5]
A long-term, but not the medium-term or a short-term transition from high fat diet to normal fat diet before pregnancy slowed down offspring body weight gain and blocked the glucose intolerance induced by 12-week post-weaning HF diet
Our previous study has indicated that a maternal short-term dietary transition prior to pregnancy (1 week) in female mice significantly exacerbated dysregulated insulin signaling and glucose tolerance induced by post-weaning HF diet in both hepatocytes and adipocytes, more so than treatment with HFD alone [43]
Summary
Approximately 41 million children globally are affected by childhood obesity, an increase of roughly 9 million children since the year 1990 [1,2,3,4,5]. Maternal diet intervention prevented offspring adipocyte inflammation award to Dr Alpini (5I01BX000574). This material is the result of work supported by resources at the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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