A maternal low-protein diet during gestation induces hepatic autophagy gene expression only in the female offspring Sprague-Dawley rats

Cai, Mingzhu

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/101749 Copy

Description

Title

A maternal low-protein diet during gestation induces hepatic autophagy gene expression only in the female offspring Sprague-Dawley rats

Author(s)

Cai, Mingzhu

Issue Date

2018-06-29

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Pan, Yuan-Xiang

Department of Study

Food Science & Human Nutrition

Discipline

Food Science & Human Nutrition

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

Maternal low-protein diet, Autophagy, Gene, Transcription factor

Abstract

Maternal protein restriction is associated with inducting of gene expression programs. Multiple stress-induced genes are known to be activated through eIF2α phosphorylation and induction of activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), which also potentially play a role in autophagy related-genes expression. The present study investigates the mechanisms by which maternal protein restriction induce autophagy related-gene expression in the liver of offspring rats. In this study, pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a control diet (18% energy from protein) or a low-protein diet (8.5% energy from protein) during gestation period followed by the control diet during lactation. Offspring consumed the same control post-weaning diet from postnatal day 21. Liver tissue was collected at postnatal day 38 from the offspring. The maternal low-protein diet significantly induced mRNA expression of the stress- response genes including Atf3 and Chop in liver of female offspring, but not in male. Moreover, mRNA expression of hepatic autophagy gene including LC3b, P62/SQSTM1, Beclin1, Atg3, Atg7, Atg5, and Atg10 was increased significantly only in the female offspring by gestational low-protein diet. The induction of gene expression was consistent with the activated eIF2a/ATF4 pathway in female offspring. Furthermore, we found the maternal low-protein diet induces ATF4 and C/EBP homology protein (CHOP) binding at the regions of specific autophagy-related genes in the liver of female offspring through differential cooperative regulation. Overall, our data demonstrated that hepatic autophagy gene expression could be induced by a maternal LP diet only in the female rat offspring. This transcriptional program involves in activated p- eIF2α/ATF4 pathway and cooperative regulation of transcription factors ATF4 and CHOP.

Graduation Semester

2018-08

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101749

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2018 Mingzhu Cai

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