Perinatal exposure to a high-fat diet is associated with reduced hepatic sympathetic innervation in one-year old male Japanese macaques.

ABSTRACT: Our group recently demonstrated that maternal high-fat diet (HFD) consumption is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, increased apoptosis, and changes in gluconeogenic gene expression and chromatin structure in fetal nonhuman primate (NHP) liver. However, little is known about the long-term effects that a HFD has on hepatic nervous system development in offspring, a system that plays an important role in regulating hepatic metabolism. Utilizing immunohistochemistry and Real-Time PCR, we quantified sympathetic nerve fiber density, apoptosis, inflammation, and other autonomic components in the livers of fetal and one-year old Japanese macaques chronically exposed to a HFD. We found that HFD exposure in-utero and throughout the postnatal period (HFD/HFD), when compared to animal

SUBMITTER: Grant WF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3484148 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature