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Improving metabolic health in obese male mice via diet and exercise restores embryo development and fetal growth

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journal contribution
posted on 2013-08-01, 00:00 authored by Nicole O McPherson, Hassan W Bakos, Julie OwensJulie Owens, Brian P Setchell, Michelle Lane
Paternal obesity is now clearly associated with or causal of impaired embryo and fetal development and reduced pregnancy rates in humans and rodents. This appears to be a result of reduced blastocyst potential. Whether these adverse embryo and fetal outcomes can be ameliorated by interventions to reduce paternal obesity has not been established. Here, male mice fed a high fat diet (HFD) to induce obesity were used, to determine if early embryo and fetal development is improved by interventions of diet (CD) and/or exercise to reduce adiposity and improve metabolism. Exercise and to a lesser extent CD in obese males improved embryo development rates, with increased cell to cell contacts in the compacting embryo measured by E-cadherin in exercise interventions and subsequently, increased blastocyst trophectoderm (TE), inner cell mass (ICM) and epiblast cell numbers. Implantation rates and fetal development from resulting blastocysts were also improved by exercise in obese males. Additionally, all interventions to obese males increased fetal weight, with CD alone and exercise alone, also increasing fetal crown-rump length. Measures of embryo and fetal development correlated with paternal measures of glycaemia, insulin action and serum lipids regardless of paternal adiposity or intervention, suggesting a link between paternal metabolic health and subsequent embryo and fetal development. This is the first study to show that improvements to metabolic health of obese males through diet and exercise can improve embryo and fetal development, suggesting such interventions are likely to improve offspring health.

History

Journal

PLoS One

Volume

8

Article number

e71459

Pagination

1-10

Location

San Francisco, Calif.

Open access

  • Yes

eISSN

1932-6203

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2013 McPherson et al.

Issue

8

Publisher

Public Library of Science (PLoS)