1. A maternal low-protein diet during gestation induces hepatic autophagy-related gene expression in a sex-specific manner in Sprague-Dawley rats
- Author
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Hong Chen, Jie Zhang, Mingzhu Cai, and Yuan Xiang Pan
- Subjects
Male ,IMPACT ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Gene Expression ,Medicine (miscellaneous) ,Rats, Sprague-Dawley ,Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2A ,Pregnancy ,BINDING ,Gene expression ,education.field_of_study ,Nutrition and Dietetics ,PREGNANT RATS ,LEADS ,Liver ,Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects ,SKELETAL-MUSCLE ,Female ,Life Sciences & Biomedicine ,RESTRICTION ,Offspring ,Maternal protein deficiency ,Activating Transcription Factor 4 ,Biology ,Andrology ,LIPID-METABOLISM ,Low-protein diet ,0702 Animal Production ,Diet, Protein-Restricted ,Autophagy ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Lactation ,RNA, Messenger ,education ,Transcription factor ,ENVIRONMENT ,Messenger RNA ,Science & Technology ,ACID RESPONSE PATHWAY ,Nutrition & Dietetics ,ATF4 ,Maternal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena ,Sex difference ,Rats ,Genes ,1111 Nutrition and Dietetics ,0908 Food Sciences ,Transcription Factors - Abstract
This study investigates the mechanism by which maternal protein restriction induces hepatic autophagy-related gene expression in the offspring of rats. Pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a control diet (C, 18 % energy from protein) or a low-protein diet (LP, 8·5 % energy from protein) during gestation, followed by the control diet during lactation and post-weaning. Liver tissue was collected from the offspring at postnatal day 38 and divided into four groups according to sex and maternal diet (F-C, F-LP, M-C and M-LP) for further analysis. Autophagy-related mRNA and protein levels were determined by real-time PCR and Western blotting, respectively. In addition, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) was performed to investigate the interactions between transcription factors and autophagy-related genes. Protein levels of p- eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2a and activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) were increased only in the female offspring born to dams fed the LP diet. Correlatively, the mRNA expression of hepatic autophagy-related genes including Map1lc3b, P62/Sqstm1, Becn1, Atg3, Atg7 and Atg10 was significantly greater in the F-LP group than in the F-C group. Furthermore, ChIP results showed greater ATF4 and C/EBP homology protein (CHOP) binding at the regions of a set of autophagy-related genes in the F-LP group than in the F-C group. Our data demonstrated that a maternal LP diet transcriptionally programmed hepatic autophagy-related gene expression only in female rat offspring. This transcriptional programme involved the activation of the eIF2α/ATF4 pathway and intricate regulation by transcription factors ATF4 and CHOP.
- Published
- 2021