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Maternal obesity programs cardiac remodeling in offspring via epigenetic, metabolic, and immune dysregulation

ABSTRACT: Maternal obesity during pregnancy significantly increases the offspring’s risk of later-life cardiovascular disease. This study investigated cardiometabolic perturbations utilizing a mouse model of maternal high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity that recapitulates metabolic abnormalities observed in humans. We have previously shown that offspring of HFD-fed mothers (Off-HFD) exhibit a progression of obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and metabolic inflexibility when compared with offspring of regular diet-fed mothers (Off-RD). The present investigation of cardiac function further identified significant functional, metabolic, and immune perturbations in adult Off-HFD mice. Specifically, Off-HFD mice presented progressing cardiac hypertrophy with reduced ejection fraction and fractional shortening, increased accumulation of fibrotic tissue, mitochondrial dysfunction, and altered immune complexity including increases in cardiac resident macrophages and decreases in CD4+ and Cd8+ T-cells. While these alterations may not be immediately catastrophic, they likely predispose offspring to heightened sensitivity to nutritional, psychological, or environmental stressors. To explore the timing and mechanisms by which maternal environment impacts offspring cardiac function, we examined DNA methylation in the hearts of newly-weaned Off-RD and Off-HFD mice. This analysis revealed numerous differentially methylated CpGs and regions within genes associated with cardiac development, hypertrophy, mitochondrial function, and immune response. Thus, our study reveals that cardiovascular dysregulations in offspring of obese mothers originate early in development and persist into adult life. These findings uncover potential windows of opportunity for preventive therapy and early therapeutic interventions.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE294642 | GEO | 2025/10/14

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Maternal obesity can program metabolic syndrome in offspring but the mechanisms are not well characterized. Moreover, the consequences of maternal overnutrition in the absence of frank obesity remain poorly understood. This study aimed to determine the effects of maternal consumption of a high fat-sucrose diet on the skeletal muscle metabolic and transcriptional profiles of adult offspring. Female Sprague Dawley rats were fed either a diet rich in saturated fat and sucrose (HFD, 23.5% fat, 20% sucrose wt/wt) or a standard chow diet (NFD, 7% fat, 10% sucrose w/w) for the 3 weeks prior to mating and throughout pregnancy and lactation. Although maternal weights were not different between groups at conception or weaning, HFD dams were ~22% heavier than chow fed dams from mid-pregnancy until 4 days post-partum. Adult male offspring of HFD dams were not heavier than controls but demonstrated features of insulin resistance including elevated plasma insulin concentration (+40%, P<0.05). Next Generation mRNA Sequencing was used to identify differentially expressed genes in the soleus muscle of offspring, and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) to detect coordinated changes that are characteristic of a biological function. GSEA identified 15 pathways enriched for up-regulated genes, including cytokine signaling (P<0.005), starch and sucrose metabolism (P<0.017), and inflammatory response (P<0.024). A further 8 pathways were significantly enriched for down-regulated genes including oxidative phosphorylation (P<0.004) and electron transport (P<0.022). Western blots confirmed a ~60% reduction in the phosphorylation of the insulin signaling protein Akt (P<0.05) and ~70% reduction in mitochondrial complexes II (P<0.05) and V expression (P<0.05). On a normal diet, offspring of HFD dams developed an insulin resistant phenotype, with transcriptional evidence of muscle cytokine activation, inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction. These data indicate that maternal overnutrition, even in the absence of pre-pregnancy obesity can promote metabolic dysregulation and predispose offspring to type 2 diabetes. Messenger RNA profile of skeletal muscle of male offspring from female Sprague Dawley rats fed either a diet rich in saturated fat and sucrose (HFD, 23.5% fat, 20% sucrose wt/wt) or a standard chow diet (NFD, 7% fat, 10% sucrose w/w) for the 3 weeks prior to mating and throughout pregnancy and lactation. There were 5 HFD samples compared to 6 NFD control samples.

Project description:Objective Recent evidence indicates that the adult hematopoietic system is susceptible to diet-induced lineage skewing. It is not known whether the developing hematopoietic system is subject to metabolic programming via in utero high fat diet (HFD) exposure, an established mechanism of adult disease in several organ systems. We previously reported substantial losses in offspring liver size with prenatal HFD. As the liver is the main hematopoietic organ in the fetus, we asked whether the developmental expansion of the hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) pool is compromised by prenatal HFD and/or maternal obesity. Methods We used quantitative assays, progenitor colony formation, flow cytometry, transplantation, and gene expression assays with a series of dietary manipulations to test the effects of gestational high fat diet and maternal obesity on the day 14.5 fetal liver hematopoietic system. Results Maternal obesity, particularly when paired with gestational HFD, restricts physiological expansion of fetal HSPCs while promoting the opposing cell fate of differentiation. Importantly, these effects are only partially ameliorated by gestational dietary adjustments for obese dams. Competitive transplantation reveals compromised repopulation and myeloid-biased differentiation of HFD-programmed HSPCs to be a niche-dependent defect, apparent in HFD-conditioned male recipients. Fetal HSPC deficiencies coincide with perturbations in genes regulating metabolism, immune and inflammatory processes, and stress response, along with downregulation of genes critical for hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal and activation of pathways regulating cell migration. Conclusions Our data reveal a previously unrecognized susceptibility to nutritional and metabolic developmental programming in the fetal HSPC compartment, which is a partially reversible and microenvironment-dependent defect perturbing stem and progenitor cell expansion and hematopoietic lineage commitment. Examination of differentially expressed genes between gestational day 15 (+/- 0.5 days) C57BL/6 mouse fetal livers from diet-induced (60% fat diet) obese or control female mice.

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Maternal obesity programs cardiac remodeling in offspring via epigenetic, metabolic, and immune dysregulation

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