Neonatal Programming of Neuroimmunomodulation – Role of Adipocytokines and Neuropeptides

Abstract

Programming is an epigenetic phenomenon by which nutrition, environment and stress acting in a critical period earlier in life change the organism‘s development. This process was evolutionarily selected as an adaptive tool for the survival of organisms living in nutritionally deficient areas and submitted to stressful conditions. Thus, perinatal malnutrition turns on different genes that provide the organism with a thrifty phenotype. In conditions of abundant supply of nutrients, those programmed organisms can be at risk of developing metabolic diseases (obesity, dyslipidemia, diabetes and hypertension). How nutrition or neonatal stress can program the immune system is less well known. Here, we discuss some of the hormonal and metabolic changes that occur in mothers and neonates and how those factors can imprint hormonal or metabolic changes that program neuroimmunomodulatory effects. Some of these changes involve thyroid hormones, leptin, insulin, glucocorticoids and prolactin as potential imprinting factors. Most of them can be transferred through the milk and may change with malnutrition or stress. We discuss the programming effects of these hormones upon body weight, body composition, insulin action, thyroid, adrenal and immune and inflammatory responses, with special emphasis on leptin, a cytokine that seems to play a central role in these events.

Endocrine effects of tobacco smoke exposure during lactation in weaned and adult male offspring

“…This association between early events (such as maternal smoking) and late consequences (such as obesity) exemplifies a phenomenon known as metabolic programming (de Moura et al 2008. Recently, some studies have shown that tobacco exposure in utero is associated with changes in gene methylation profile (Suter et al 2010(Suter et al , 2011, and the same event was observed in nicotine exposure (the main cigarette component)-changes the gene methylation pattern in fetal life are associated with long-term decreases in cortisol (Wang et al 2011).…”

Field and laboratory methods in human milk research

“…Researchers have only begun to define normal milk variation across populations and how it influences the postnatal period and beyond (Neville et al, 2012). Many of the emerging questions in human biology are linked to lactation, from unique aspects of primate Milligan and Bazinet, 2008) and human life histories (Fujita et al, 2011), parental investment (Fujita et al, 2012;Hinde, 2009;Powe et al, 2010), and developmental programming (de Moura et al, 2008;Hinde and Capitano, 2010;Miralles et al, 2006;Newburg et al, 2010;Palou et al, 2009;Pico et al, 2007;Prentice, 2005;Quinn, 2011;Quinn et al, 2012;Savino et al, 2009;Stocker and Cawthorne, 2008;Weyerman et al, 2007). In addition, lactation is implicated in human evolutionary biology, including the evolution of large brains and body fat (Kuzawa, 1998;Martin, 1981), childhood (Bogin, 1999;Konner, 2010;Sellen, 2007), reproductive timing (Al-Sahab et al, 2011) and the developmental origins of adult metabolism (Kuzawa and Quinn, 2009;Wells, 2003).…”

Short- and long-term effects of maternal nicotine exposure during lactation on body adiposity, lipid profile, and thyroid function of rat offspring

“…This association has been named programing, which is defined as the phenomenon that putatively underlies relationships among nutritional experiences of early life and adult diseases (Lucas 1994, Barker 2003, Moura & Passos 2005, de Moura et al 2008.…”