Effect of dietary lipids on factors involved in mouse pregnancy safekeeping

VEAUTE C; ANDREOLI F; RACCA A; BAILAT A; GARCIA MI; SOUTULLO A; BERNAL C; MALAN BOREL I

Córdoba - Argentina

Congreso; VII Congreso Latinoamericano de Inmunología; 2005

ALAI

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of dietary fatty acids (FA) on reproductive performance in a mouse model. The number of foetus as well as regulatory and pro-inflammatory cytokines expression were analysed. CF1 weaning mice were fed: 17g% fat enriched in trans-FA plus 3g% of corn oil (group 1, n=12), 17 g% conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) plus 3g% corn oil (group 2, n=16), 20g% corn oil (group 3, n=12) and standard laboratory show (7% total fat) (group 4, n=9). After 1 month of treatment, the animals were mated. On day 18 of pregnancy, females were sacrificed, fetuses counted and placentae removed. IL-4, TGF-b and TNF-a expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry using the biotin-avidin-peroxidase system and expressed as number of positive cells/400x field. The results showed no significant differences in the number of fetuses between groups. Placental TGF-b expression was lower in group 2 (0.15±0.08) compared with groups 3 and 4 (0.40±0.29; 0.46±0.26, respectively) (p<0.05). IL-4 expression was lower in groups 1, 2 and 3 (0.16±0.15; 0.14±0.17; 0.28±0.19, respectively) compared with group 4 (0.68±0.15) (p<0.05). However, no differences were seen when TNF-a expression was analyzed (p>0.05). These results suggest that dietary lipids would affect the expression of regulatory cytokines TGF-b and IL-4, involved in maintaining normal pregnancy, without affecting TNF-a.expression, a pro-inflammatory cytokine.