engleski

Effects of the maternal gestational and lactational diet regime on the offspring adipose tissue morphology in Sprague-Dawley rats

Obesity is a leading preventable cause of death with increasing prevalence in adults and children. It has been shown that adipocytes in obese subjects tend to be hypertrophic compared to lean subjects. Recent studies also suggest that maternal high fat diet (HFD) during pregnancy and lactation may also be a trigger for obesity among the offspring. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible influence of maternal diets combined with offspring's diet after weaning on adipose tissue morphology. Our aim was to analyse influence of the high fat diet (HFD) and normal diet after weaning on subcutaneous adipose tissue in the offspring of the female rats fed on the high fat diet and normal chow during gestation and lactation. Ten female Sprague Dawley rats, nine weeks old, were randomly divided in two groups, CD (control diet) and HFD (food rich in saturated fatty acids) during five weeks, and then mated with genetically similar males. After birth and lactation, offspring rats from each group (CD and HFD) were further randomly divided into four groups, based on their mothers’ diet as well as their own diet. Harvested subcutaneous adipose tissue samples were fixed in 4% paraformaldehide, paraffin-embedded, cut in 6 μm thick slices and histologically stained with haematoxylin-eosin. Histomorphometry and adipocytes quantification was performed using the Cell Profiler. Preliminary results of subcutaneous adipose tissue quantification in female rats (two animals per group, n=8) show noticeable morphological differences in CD-HFD and HFD-HFD rats compared to other groups in terms of hypertrophy and cellularity. Median areas of adipocytes in CD-HFD and HFD-HFD rats are 94.09 μm² and 91.36 μm², respectively, which indicates slight hypertrophy compared to median areas in CD-CD (86.01 μm²) and HFD-CD group (88.27 μm²). Our preliminary results suggest that adipocyte hypertrophy primarily depends on the offspring diet regime, although HFD maternal diet may make offspring more prone to obesity by influencing the number of adipocytes, rather than their volume. However, no conclusions should be drawn until the data from a larger sample is available.

obesity; adipocytes; high fat diet; rats

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