Post‐weaning western style diet leads to increased activity of Complex IV of non‐human primates when exposed to western style diet in utero.

Abstract

Adult offspring of insulin resistant mothers show increased susceptibility to type 2 diabetes and obesity. Previous studies in this population have found reduced mitochondrial function and decreased lipid oxidation in skeletal muscle consistent with insulin resistance. It is not known how maternal diet affects functioning of the individual electron transport chain complexes. We were specifically interested in investigating whether exposure to maternal western style diet (WSD), or post‐weaning (PW) exposure to WSD, would impact functioning of Complex IV (CIV) when compared across treatment groups. Gastrocnemius muscle homogenates taken from 1 year old juvenile Japanese Macaque of dams exposed either to a control (CTR) or WSD prenatal (PN), and a CTR or WSD PW diet, were assayed for activity in Cytochrome C oxidation, reporting on the activity of CIV in these tissues. We hypothesized that in‐utero exposure to maternal WSD would lead to functional changes in complex IV of the electron transport chain. Our results showed no direct effect of maternal diet on CIV activity, but an increase in CIV activity when prenatally exposed offspring were fed a PW WSD. When analyzed by sex, males showed an increase in CIV activity when exposed to PN WSD, while females showed an increase in CIV with exposure to PW WSD, regardless of PN exposure. Experiments assessing citrate synthase activity shows no change with exposure to PN WSD, indicating that there is no increase in mitochondrial number. Taken together, these data show that while there is no increase in mitochondrial number, there is an increase in CIV activity with exposure to both PN and PW WSD in males and females, and increased activity in females regardless of PN exposure.