Association between intrauterine mild hyperglycemia and post-natal high-fat diet with adiponectin and AMPK pathway genes

Abstract

To investigate the mechanisms of maternal–fetal interactions in the setting of gestational diabetes mellitus. We investigated the long-term effects of intrauterine mild hyperglycemia and a postnatal high-fat diet on the glucose metabolism of adult offspring, and explored the role of adiponectin on hepatic gluconeogenesis. Twenty-one pregnant Wistar rats were randomly divided into an intrauterine hyperglycemia group (group D, n = 14) and a control group (group C, n = 7). Offspring were divided into four groups according to intrauterine blood glucose level and post-weaning dietary patterns (high-fat diet groups: DF and CF or normal diet groups: DN and CN, n = 8 per group). The average birth weights of group D offspring were higher than for group C. In the DF rats, low adiponectin mRNA expression in perirenal and epididymal fat was significantly positively correlated with low hepatic AdipoR1 mRNA expression and significantly correlated with high hepatic PEPCK, G-6-Pase, and PGC-1α mRNA levels. In DF rats, hepatic P-AMPK was cytoplasmically located and its level was decreased; in these rats, hepatic CRTC2 was expressed in the nucleus and its level was significantly increased. Our study shows that the dietary structure of offspring has a large influence on the incidence of abnormal glucose tolerance.

Chinese abstract

为研究母体-胎儿在妊娠期糖尿病中相互作用的机制，我们研究宫内轻度高血糖和出生后高脂饮食对成年后代葡萄糖代谢的长期影响，并探讨脂联素对肝糖原异生的作用。将21只怀孕的Wistar大鼠随机分为宫内高血糖组（组D，n=14）和对照组（组C，n=7）。后代依据宫内血糖水平和断奶后饮食模式被分为4组（高脂饮食组：DF和CF或正常饮食组：DN和CN，每组n=8）。D组后代的平均出生体重高于C组。在DF大鼠，肾周与附睾脂肪中低水平的脂联素mRNA表达与低水平肝AdipoR1 mRNA表达呈显著正相关，与高水平肝PEPCK、G-6-Pase及PGC-1α mRNA表达显著相关。在DF大鼠，位于胞质的肝P-AMPK水平降低；在这些大鼠中，肝CRTC2在细胞核中表达，其水平显著增加。我们的研究表明，后代的膳食结构对糖耐量异常的发病率有很大的影响。

• Diabetes
• insulin resistance
• pregnancy

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declaration of interest. Huixia Yang is the guarantor of this work and, as such, had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Kai Zhang wrote the manuscript and analyzed data. Xin Li analyzed data. Li Zhang and Huixia Yang contributed to review and edit the manuscript.

Supplementary data available online