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Basic Science

Poster Session 4

(1114) Link between adiposity distribution and cytokine signaling in offspring brains of exercised versus sedentary mice

Wednesday, February 14, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:30 PM  
Location: Prince George's Exhibit Hall CDE, Lower Atrium Level
Foundation Awardee
Objective: Human epidemiological and animal studies have shown that the maternal in utero environment significantly impacts offspring development. This maternal environment includes a sedentary (SED) lifestyle, which is linked to developmental programming of metabolic dysfunction. Our previous study showed significant differences in adiposity distribution in offspring from SED versus exercised (EX) dams, with EX increasing brown adipose and decreasing white adipose tissue weight. The aim of this study was to investigate if cytokine signaling in the brains of offspring could predict adiposity distribution in mice born to either EX or SED dams.

Study Design: C57BL/6J female mice were placed on a control diet and allocated to SED or voluntary running wheel EX cages. Voluntary wheel running was allowed for 2 weeks prior to breeding and throughout weaning. Offspring were euthanized at 16 weeks of age. Adipose tissue depots were dissected and weighed. Offspring brains were harvested, and hypothalamus was dissected for Luminex cytokine quantification and analysis. We performed partial least squares (PLS) analysis to create predictive models.

Results: Using the supervised machine learning tool PLS, we found that cytokine signaling in the hypothalamus of offspring could predict the quantity of brown and white adipose tissue. Offspring with higher levels of brown adipose tissue had upregulated cytokine secretion (Accuracy: RMSECV 0.0357, Confidence 100%), and those with higher levels of white adipose tissue had downregulated cytokine secretion (Accuracy: RMSECV 0.0748, Confidence: 100 %).

Conclusion: A connection exists between hypothalamic cytokine profiles and adiposity distribution in mice, which may be altered by maternal programming of either EX or SED behavior. Future studies will investigate if this altered cytokine profile and adiposity distribution protects against the deleterious effects of high fat diet throughout the offspring’s life.