STUDY QUESTIONDoes advanced maternal age (AMA) in mice affect cardiometabolic health during post-natal life in offspring derived from an assisted reproduction technology (ART) procedure?SUMMARY ANSWEROffspring derived from blastocysts collected from aged female mice displayed impaired body weight gain, blood pressure, glucose metabolism and organ allometry during post-natal life compared with offspring derived from blastocysts from young females; since all blastocysts were transferred to normalized young mothers, this effect is independent of maternal pregnancy conditions.WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADYAlthough studies in mice have shown that AMA can affect body weight and behaviour of offspring derived from natural reproduction, data on the effects of AMA on offspring cardiometabolic health during post-natal development are not available. Given the increasing use of ART to alleviate infertility in women of AMA, it is pivotal to develop ART–AMA models addressing the effects of maternal aging on offspring health.STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATIONBlastocysts from old (34–39 weeks) or young (8–9 weeks) C57BL/6 females mated with young CBA males (13–15 weeks) were either subjected to differential cell staining (inner cell mass and trophectoderm) or underwent embryo transfer (ET) into young MF1 surrogates (8–9 weeks) to produce young (Young-ET, 9 litters) and old (Old-ET, 10 litters) embryo-derived offspring. Offspring health monitoring was carried out for 30 weeks.PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODSAll animals were fed with standard chow. Blood pressure was measured at post-natal Weeks 9, 15 and 21, and at post-natal Week 30 a glucose tolerance test (GTT) was performed. Two days after the GTT mice were killed for organ allometry. Blastocyst cell allocation variables were evaluated by T-test and developmental data were analysed with a multilevel random effects regression model.MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCEThe total number of cells in blastocysts from aged mice was decreased (P < 0.05) relative to young mice due to a lower number of cells in the trophectoderm (mean ± SEM: 34.5 ± 2.1 versus 29.6 ± 1.0). Weekly body weight did not differ in male offspring, but an increase in body weight from Week 13 onwards was observed in Old-ET females (final body weight at post-natal Week 30: 38.5 ± 0.8 versus 33.4 ± 0.8 g, P < 0.05). Blood pressure was increased in Old-ET offspring at Weeks 9–15 in males (Week 9: 108.5 ± 3.13 versus 100.8 ± 1.5 mmHg, Week 15: 112.9 ± 3.2 versus 103.4 ± 2.1 mmHg) and Week 15 in females (115.9 ± 3.7 versus 102.8 ± 0.7 mmHg; all P < 0.05 versus Young-ET). The GTT results and organ allometry were not affected in male offspring. In contrast, Old-ET females displayed a greater (P < 0.05) peak glucose concentration at 30 min during the GTT (21.1 ± 0.4 versus 17.8 ± 1.16 mmol/l) and their spleen weight (88.2 ± 2.6 ± 105.1 ± 4.6 mg) and several organ:body weight ratios (g/g × 103) were decreased (P < 0.05 versus Young-ET), including the heart (3.7 ± 0.06 versus 4.4 ± 0.08), lungs (4.4 ± 0.1 versus 5.0 ± 0.1), sple...

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Novobiocin' (streptonivicin) is a new antibiotic discovered in the laboratories of The Upjohn Company. The announcement of the antibiotic (Smith et al., 1956), chemical properties (Hoeksema et al., 1956), structure (Hinman et al., 1956; Hoeksema et al., 1955), therapeutic activities (Wilkins et al., 1956), tissue assay method (Taylor et al., 1956a), pharmacologic properties (Taylor et at., 1956b and Larson et al., 1956), and clinical studies (Lin et al., 1956 and Martin et al., 1955) have been reported previously. This publication describes fermentation studies with Streptomyces niveus. MATERIALS AND METHODS Streptomyces niveus was maintained on maltosetryptone agar slants prepared from soil or freeze-dried stocks as described previously (Smith et al., 1956). All fermentations were carried out in 500-ml Erlenmeyer flasks containing 100 ml of medium. The flasks were sterilized at 120 C for 20 minutes and incubated on a Gump shaker rotating at 250 rpm with a 2-inch throw. Vegetative seed was prepared by inoculating a medium containing glucose monohydrate, 25 g per L, and cottonseed meal, 40 g per L, with a loopful of spores. One hundred ml of the seed medium was incubated in a 500-ml Erlenmeyer flask as described above. The fermentation samples were prepared for 1 The trademark of The Upjohn Company for novobiocin is Albamycin.