Maternal western style diet programs the development of fatty liver in mice

Abstract

Obesity in the mother is known to play a role in transmission of an obesogenic trait to the offspring. We here aimed to identify the underlying mechanism of metabolic programming by maternal nutrition.Female C57BL/6 mice were fed a semi‐synthetic diet (LF, 10 kcal% fat and 18 mg/kg cholesterol) or a semi‐synthetic western style diet (WS, 45 kcal% fat and 196,5 mg/kg cholesterol) before and during gestation and lactation. From weaning on offspring received the LF diet or WS diet, resulting in four groups: LF/LF, LF/WS, WS/WS and WS/LF.In male offspring prenatal exposure to WS diet led to a higher body weight in both postnatal diet groups. Liver size increased by 1.9 fold in WS/WS compared to LF/WS offspring (p<0.001), also associated with a rise in liver lipid concentrations. This increase in liver size was not seen in the WS/LF or LF/WS diet offspring. Histological markers were markedly exaggerated when offspring had been exposed to a WS diet during early developmental stages. Our data provide evidence that exposure to a WS diet in early developmental stages predisposes offspring to obesity and primes susceptibility to develop hepatic steatosis.