Abstract
Both bisphenol A (BPA) and high-fat diet (HFD) exert unfavorable effects on animals and humans; moreover, they could affect the health of their offspring. BPA and HFD often coexist in modern lifestyles; however, the long-term effects of simultaneous exposure of mothers to BPA and HFD during the perinatal period on the cardiovascular and metabolic systems of the offspring remain unclear. This study aimed to examine the effect of simultaneous exposure of mothers to BPA and HFD on the risk of metabolic and cardiovascular abnormalities in offspring. Institute of Cancer Research female mice (F0) were exposed to BPA and fed with HFD before and during gestation until the end of lactation. F0 mice were mated with untreated males to produce the first generation (F1); subsequently, adult F1 males/females were mated with normal females/males to produce the second generation (F2). Combined maternal exposure to BPA and HFD caused myocardial hypertrophy and aortic tunica media thickening as well as increased the cross-sectional area of cardiomyocytes and blood pressure in the matrilineal F2 generation. These cardiovascular changes might be associated with reduced endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) levels. The patrilineal female F2 was more likely to be obese than the patrilineal male F2. Re-feeding with a HFD showed a more significant weight gain and reduced energy expenditure. However, the aforementioned effects were not observed with exposure to HFD or BPA alone during the perinatal period. Our findings suggest that perinatal combinational exposure to BPA and HFD could cause metabolic and cardiovascular disorders in the offspring, Further, our findings demonstrate that the synergistic effects of HFD and BPA could be transmitted to future generations in a sex-dependent manner.
Highlights
There has been a worldwide increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, which have made them a grave public health concern (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), 2017; Devos and Menard, 2020)
There was a significant increase in the bodyweight of female mice in the high-fat diet (HFD) and HFD + bisphenol A (BPA) group than of those in the LFD group; BPA had no direct effect on body weight in F0 mice (Figure 1B)
This study examined the transgenerational inheritance of adverse outcomes after combinational exposure of female mice (F0) to BPA and HFD during the perinatal period, with a particular focus on metabolic and cardiovascular changes in F2
Summary
There has been a worldwide increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, which have made them a grave public health concern (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), 2017; Devos and Menard, 2020). Exposure of rodents and humans (F0) to some adverse environmental factors can cause phenotype changes and increased susceptibility to diseases (Kolb and Martin, 2017; Di Ciaula and Portincasa, 2019), with these adverse outcomes being possibly passed down to future generations (F1, F2, etc.) even without direct exposure (Barua and Junaid, 2015). This is considered the transgenerational inheritance of the adverse effects of environmental factors (Krishnan et al, 2018; Schellong et al, 2020). Several large epidemiological studies have demonstrated an association of high exposure levels to BPA or HFD with an increased risk of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases (Han and Hong, 2016; Bao et al, 2020; Choi et al, 2020)
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