Question

You are what your mother eats? -Maternal diet and offspring obesity Maternal diet, which may directly affect the offspring genome, is an important field of study for population health considering the number of US mothers which are overweight or obese. As discussed in class, elevated maternal obesity risk factors result in an increased obesity risk of the offspring, but equally presents a higher risk for stillbirth, neural tube defects, increased inflammatory cytokine levels and results in a higher risk for cancer, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in adulthood. Here, data giving insight on the molecular pathways of inheritance and development of offspring are depicted 1) Analyze how maternal diet is interfering with the offspring body weight in male and female mice (Fig. 1). Weekly Weights: Daughters Weekly Weights: Sons 30 G 25 20 15 10 15 10 13 5 79 11 13 15 17 Age (weeks) 13 5 79 11 13 15 17 Age (weeks) LF-HF LF-LF HF-HF _HFHF 우 ーHF.LF δ LF-LF HF-LF Fig 1. Weekly weights of offspring (± SE). High-fat diet offspring weigh more than low-fat diet offspring by 4 weeks of age (1 week after being weaned onto the diet) (8 p 1.66 x 10-10, p-9.10 x 10-13).Asterisks ()indicate where pairwise comparisons showed significant p values < 0.05. HF High-fat diet, LF·Low-fat diet, N·10 per group, the first diet listed (before the hyphen) indicates the maternal diet, and the second diet (after the hyphen) indicates offspring diet. 2.) Describe the changes of gene expression in preadipocyte (day 0) and mature adipocytes (day 7) in offspring at postnatal day (PND) 21 and 100 from lean (LF) and obese (HF) mothers (Fig. 2) Fig. 2: Representative Photomicrographs of Oil-Red-C Stained adipocytes (day 7) from offspring of lean and OB dams at PND21 (panel A) and PND100 (panel C). MRNA expression of genes associated with differentiation at PND21 (panel B) and PND100 (panel D) at day 0 and day 7. Gene expression is normalized to cyclophilin A mRNA and expres sed as fold-change over levels in lean day O. Statistical differences were determined using 2 way ANOVA followed by all pair-wise comparisons by Fisher least significant difference (LSD). Asterisks signify P 05. Data showed no differences between male and female offspring. FABP4 PPARY PPARY Prefl Pref Day 0 Day 7 Day 0 Day 7

Answer 1

Answer 1:)

In males offspring it is clearly visible that even high fat diet is primarily given to offspring, there is no extra weight gain (HF-LF offspring) and eventually meets with the LF-LF diet graph. In contrast, if high fat offspring diet is continuous whether in HF-HF or LF-HF offspring, males become obese.

In females, if low fat maternal diet is given with high fat offspring diet (LF-HF), we get decreased obese females but not as compare to LF-LF and HF-LF offspring. LF-HF offspring is significantly lesser fatty than HF-HF offspring.

The above results show that maternal diet is crucial in females’ fitness over obesity.

Answer 2:)

In the PND 21 images of adipocytes staining, the image is showing that both lean and OB offspring have good amount of adipocytes. However, OB offspring have more cells than the lean. In contrast, PND 100 (panel C) is showing lesser adipocytes in both lean and OB offspring.

During PND21, in mRNA expression levels, it is clearly visible that two mRNAs FABP4 and PPAR7 is highly expressing in OB offspring while Pref1 is lesser expressing in OB offspring. It suggests that FABP4 and PPAR7 are directly associating with obesity while Pref1 is associating with lean characteristics.

At PND100, FABP4, PPAR7 and Leptin stops under normal feeding in lean mothers’ offspring while after 7 days these mRNA again expresses may due to increasing diet. However, offspring from obese mothers show all mRNA expressions in good amount while at day 7 only Pref1 decreases.

The results are hence showing that diets are crucial in expressing obese and lean regulating genes.

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