Moderately increased maternal dietary energy intake delays foetal skeletal muscle differentiation and maturity in pigs

Abstract

Our results suggest that moderately increased maternal dietary energy intake delays the differentiation and maturation in skeletal muscle of the foetus on day 90 of gestation.

Mitochondrial biogenesis is decreased in skeletal muscle of pig fetuses exposed to maternal high-energy diets

“…Particularly, maternal HE diet led to decreased mitochondrial function in HE fetuses by reducing skeletal muscle antioxidant enzyme activities and expression of gene involved in mitochondrial function. As mitochondrial biogenesis accompanies skeletal myogenesis, the compromised mitochondrial function and decreased mitochondrial biogenesis, together with increased oxidative damage, seem to exert deleterious effects on skeletal muscle, which could partly explain our previous finding of maternal HE dietinduced delayed fetal myogenesis (Zou et al, 2016). As expected, BW gain of HE sows was higher on day 90 of gestation compared with NE sows, which is consistent with previous reports (Bee, 2004).…”

“…Consistently, as CS reflects the mitochondrial enrichment of tissue (Kelley et al, 2002), the CS mRNA level was decreased in HE fetuses. However, our previous results showed no difference in CS activity between NE and HE fetuses (Zou et al, 2016), which are similar to results obtained by Guillerm-Regost et al (2006) who reported that overconsumption of a high-fat diet did not affect CS activity in muscle of Yucatan minipigs. The discrepancies between mtDNA content and CS activity between groups revealed that CS activity may be influenced by other factors (Liu et al, 2012).…”

“…We previously reported that no significant difference was found in fetal weight between NE and HE groups (NE v. HE = 737.3 v. 703.3 g, P > 0.05) (Zou et al, 2016). Given the relationship between sow and piglets weights, the data were also analyzed as fetal: maternal weight ratio to give a more accurate description of fetal growth.…”

“…Moreover, blocking mitochondrial biogenesis inhibits myogenic differentiation (Rochard et al, 2000). Our previous study using a pig model indicated that moderately increased maternal dietary energy intake delayed fetal skeletal muscle differentiation and maturity on day 90 of gestation through changing myogenic gene expression and muscle fiber characteristics (Zou et al, 2016). Therefore, we hypothesized that the impairment of mitochondrial function may contribute to maternal HE diet-induced delayed skeletal myogenesis in pig fetuses.…”

“…Likewise, decreased oxidative phosphorylation, antioxidative capacity and mitochondrial electron transport chain enzyme activities in the liver and skeletal muscle have been observed in the offspring subjected to maternal overnutrition and diabetes (Bruce et al, 2009;Zhang et al, 2011;Latouche et al, 2014). In mammals, muscle fibers are formed prenatally, and subsequent skeletal muscle development depends largely on muscle fiber hypertrophy (Nissen et al, 2003;Zou et al, 2016). Therefore, skeletal muscle is particularly vulnerable during the very early stage of mammalian development, and understanding the effect of maternal overnutrition on mitochondrial biogenesis and function in skeletal muscle of the fetuses may provide useful information on the fetal origins of the metabolic syndrome.…”