Abstract
Regular exercise during pregnancy can prevent offspring from several diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and type II diabetes during adulthood. However, little information is available about whether maternal exercises during pregnancy protect the offspring from infectious diseases, such as sepsis and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). This study aimed to investigate whether maternal exercise training protects the offspring from endotoxin-induced septic shock in mice. Female C57BL/6 mice performed voluntary wheel exercises during pregnancy. All dams and offspring were fed normal chow with sedentary activity during lactation and after weaning. At 10-week-old, mice were intraperitoneally injected a lethal (30 mg/kg) or nonlethal (15 mg/kg) dose of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), following which the survival of mice that were administered a lethal dose was monitored for 60 h. Plasma, lung, and liver samples were collected 18 h after the injection to evaluate the cytokine concentration or mRNA expression from those administered a nonlethal dose. Although maternal exercise training could not prevent lethality during an LPS-induced septic shock, it significantly inhibited the LPS-induced loss of body weight in female offspring. Regular maternal exercise significantly inhibited the mRNA expression of the LPS-induced inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ), in the plasma and liver. Thus, maternal exercise inhibited the LPS-induced inflammatory response in female offspring, suggesting that regular exercise during pregnancy could be a potential candidate of the onset of sepsis and MODS in offspring.
Highlights
Maternal behavior during pregnancy affects the embryonic environment, which in turn, affects the prenatal development of offspring and leads to their predisposition to various chronic diseases in adulthood, such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, obesity, and type II diabetes [1,2]
Recent studies have demonstrated that regular exercise during pregnancy prevents several diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and type II diabetes, in adulthood [1,2]
Our results demonstrated that maternal exercise significantly prevented the LPS-induced loss of body weight and the induction of inflammatory cytokines in female offspring, suggesting that maternal exercise during pregnancy is a potential candidate of the onset of sepsis in offspring
Summary
Maternal behavior during pregnancy affects the embryonic environment, which in turn, affects the prenatal development of offspring and leads to their predisposition to various chronic diseases in adulthood, such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, obesity, and type II diabetes [1,2]. We have recently reported that regular exercise during pregnancy prevents the maternal high-fat diet–induced hypermethylation of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (pgc-1α) gene and the age-dependent metabolic dysfunction in offspring [6]. These findings suggest that regular exercise during pregnancy is a determining stimulus for the predisposition of offspring to prevent cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Whether maternal exercise affects the offspring inflammatory response in adulthood remains unknown
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