Metabolic syndrome in dams and fetal programming: a study in a murine model.

LUQUE EM; GERBALDO V; TORRES PJ; RAMÍREZ ND; ARJA A; MARTINI AC

Córdoba

Jornada; XXIII Jornada de Investigación de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas; 2022

Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a highly prevalent in our country, even in women at gestational age. However, its potential impact as a fetal programmer was rarely evaluated.The hypothesis of our study was that dams MS alters the development of the offspring, impacting on litters growth and postnatal development. Hence, we studied in a model of pregnant rats (F0) with MS, the effects of this pathology on: 1) pregnancy rate, duration of gestation and litter size and weight; 2) physical, neurobiological and sexual development of the offspring (F1) and 3) reproductive function of the F1 in adulthood.We used adult female Wistar rats, randomly divided into two groups: a) controls (C): pelleted food + water; and b) SM: pelleted food + water with 10% fructose; n=8 animals/treatment. The treatment was applied from 4 weeks previous to copula, until pups weaning. Results were analyzed with ANOVA, repeated measures ANOVA or Chi-square, as appropriate, and p≤0.05 as significance level.In F0, MS was verified with a significant increase in total cholesterol (MS=87.9±1.6mg/dl vs C=65.0±6.4mg/dl), triglycerides (MS=136.2±18.3mg /dl vs C=79.5±11.9mg/dl), LDL (SM=24.3±4.5mg/dl vs C=9.8±3.5mg/dl) and TG/HDL (SM=4 .1±0.7 vs C= 2.0±0.1). Furthermore, these females gained significantly more weight (SM=35.5±3.4g vs C=23.9±3.7g) and had more visceral fat (SM=11.7±2.3g vs C=6.4 ±1.3g). In F1, SM increased significantly body weight gain of male pups (SM=59.52±0.66g vs C=49.67±2.24g) and advanced vaginal opening (day 28: SM=46, 7±29.0% vs C=10.0±5.0%) and testicular descent (day 19: SM=100.0±0.0% vs C=11.67±5.43%); n=6-4 litters/treatment.In adulthood, F1 female pups from the SM group (n=12) showed, at gestation day 18, significantly increased body weight (SM=280.4±3.9g vs C=251.5±7.0g without pups), higher amounts of corpora lutea (SM=15.00±0.4 vs C=12.25±0.5), heavier fetuses (SM=2.2±0.2g vs C=1.7±0.2g) and higher frequency of embryonic loss (SM=13.3±4.5% vs C=3.6±1.2%) than control pups (n=10).Under our experimental conditions, it can be confirmed that MS acts as a fetal programmer, modeling the physical and sexual development of the offspring and the reproductive function of the female pups in adulthood.