Enriched Environment Strategy Improves Pregnancy Outcome and Offspring?s Adult Health After an Immune Challenge During Gestation.

SCHANDER JULIETA AYLEN; CYMERYNG CORA; WOLFSON MANUEL LUIS; FRANCHI ANA MARÍA; AISEMBERG JULIETA; JENSEN FEDERICO

Paris

Congreso; 66th Annual Scientific Meeting (SRI); 2020

Society for Reproductive Investigation

Introduction:Maternal lifestyle affects the pregnancy outcome and the offspring´s adulthealth. Several studies show that leisure time physical activity andanti-stress treatments, like psychological accompaniment or yoga, improvedmaternal health and reduced gestational diseases in humans. In animal modelsthe enrichment of the environment has been associated to a general wellbeing ofthe subjects and we have previously demonstrated that the exposition to anenriched environment (EE) reduces preterm delivery rate induced by theadministration of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in a mouse model. Wehypothesized that EE exposition modulates maternal physiology having protectiveeffects both in pregnancy outcome and offspring?s health. The aim of the presentstudy was to evaluate the effects of LPS and EE treatment in maternalphysiology, development and adult health of the offspring.Methods: EEprotocol consisted in housing 10 six-week-old BALB/c females in big cagescontaining a variety of objects that provided optimal conditions for socialinteraction, further exploration, visual, cognitive, and voluntary exerciseactivity. Standard conditions (control environment, CE) consisted of standardcages housing 4 animals. After 6 weeks females were mated with males andpregnant females returned to EE (or CE) until day 15 of pregnancy, when LPS (orsaline solution) was administered. Eight hours after LPS administration,females were sacrificed to collect amniotic fluid and to evaluate fetal andplacental weight. Another group was allowed to continue the gestation to term,when litter size, perinatal death, weight gain during lactation and somephysical landmarks of rodent development were evaluated. When adulthood wasreached metabolic parameters were evaluated.Results: Weobserved that EE modulates maternal physiology, reducing weight gain during EEstay and triglyceride and cholesterol serum levels (p<0.05). Moreover, EEprevented the LPS-induced corticosterone serum surge (p<0.05). We found thatplacental weight was significantly lower in EE fetuses, whereas fetal/placentalratio was not different between groups. We did not found differences in theweight gain, but CE-LPS group presented 67% of perinatal death, which was notobserved in EE-LPS treated group. Furthermore, a group of pups from CE-LPStreated mothers presented a delay in physical landmarks. Amniotic fluid from EEmothers presented a higher percentage of lymphocytes B than CE group(p<0.05). In adult offspring, we observed that LPS increased triglycerideand cholesterol levels in both CE and EE groups.Conclusion: Collectively,our results show that the EE modulates maternal and offspring physiology,improving pregnancy outcome and offspring development against an inflammatorychallenge.