Maternal obesity has sex dependent effects on liver transcriptome in young adult rat offspring

ABSTRACT: Maternal high-fat diet consumption predisposes to metabolic and liver dysfunction in F1 male and female at young adulthood. Purpose: We used RNA-seq to determine the liver transcriptome of male and female F1 of MO and control fed mothers. Methods: Female Wistar rat mothers ate control (C) or obesogenic (MO) diet from the time they were weaned through breeding at postnatal day (PND) 120, delivery and lactation. After weaning all male and female F1 ate control diet. At PND 110 liver and fat were collected to analyze metabolites, histology and liver differentially expressed genes. To identify the functional F1 liver changes due to MO, we evaluated the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between MO and C males and females with separate pairwise comparisons due to the marked differences between males and females. Genes were filtered based on ≥ 1.4 fold change (FC) and nominal P value <0.05 (Student´s t-test). Results: MOF1 males presented greater physiologic and histological NAFLD characteristics than MOF1 females. RNA-seq revealed 1,365 genes significantly changed in male MOF1 liver and only 70 genes in MOF1 female compared with controls. GO and KEGG analysis identified differentially expressed genes related to metabolic process. Male MOF1 liver showed the following altered pathways: insulin signaling (22 genes), phospholipase D signaling (14 genes), NAFLD (13 genes), and glycolysis/ gluconeogenesis (7 genes). In contrast, few genes were altered in these pathways in MOF1 females. Conclusions: These results improve understanding of the mechanism by which a maternal high fat diet affects their F1. In summary, MO programs sex-dependent F1 changes in insulin, glucose and lipid signaling pathways, leading to liver dysfunction and insulin resistance. Male adult MOF1 livers show global down-regulation of genes that are required for normal function of major liver metabolic pathways. This new knowledge is important for producing sex-specific interventions.

ORGANISM(S): Rattus norvegicus

PROVIDER: GSE115535 | GEO | 2019/06/25

REPOSITORIES: GEO