Your offspring is what you eat: The impact of maternal CAF diet on the epigenetic control of dopaminergic-related genes during perinatal period (Aceptado)

RAMOS, J.G; VARAYOUD, J; ANDREOLI, M.F.; LAZZARINO, G.P.; STOKER, C.; SCHUMACHER, R.; ROSSETTI, M.F

San Diego

Encuentro; SfN Meeting 2018/ Neuroscience 2018; 2018

Society of Neuroscience

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter crucial for motor-, motivational-, and reward-related functions. Our aim was to determine the effect of a palatable maternal diet on the transcriptional regulation of genes involved in dopaminergic pathways during perinatal period in the offspring. Wistar female rats received a diet composed of standard chow (CON) and/or cafeteria ?junk-food? (CAF) from weaning and during 120 days. After mating, dams were maintained on their respective diets. Female offspring from CON and CAF dams were sacrificed on embryonic day 21 (E21) and postnatal day 10 (PND10). Using a micropunch technique, ventral tegmental area (VTA) and accumbens nucleus (NAc) were removed from offspring brains. Bioinformatic analysis of the promoter regions, mRNA quantification and methylation studies were done. No changes were found in the studied areas in E21. However, maternal CAF diet decreased the transcription of tyroxine hidroxylase (TH), dopamine receptor 2 (DRD2) and dopamine transporter (DAT) in VTA in the offspring in PND10 (p