While doing a physical examination, a 10-year old child “yuanyuan”, who was thin and showed a slow growth in the past ten years, was found to suffer from type II diabetes mellitus. Why did this disease, which was easily occurred in obese children, appear in this thin and weak child? The answer of that is his low birth weight which might be induced by maternal nutritional conditions. Based on the theory of “early origins of adult disease”, the conditions of maternal nutrition are vital for their offspring.
Dr. HE Zhixiong and her colleagues from Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISA) supposed that predisposition to some adult diseases, such as type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and syndrome X, are associated with a low fetal birth weight. They also proposed that prenatal malnutrition can lead to temporary or enduring effects on the development of adult cognitive function, immunity, metabolic syndrome, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function because of long-term programming. Moreover, animal agriculture has embraced the concept of fetal programming to improve animal growth and well-being. Maternal immune and physiological conditions may affect this programming.
Based on these assumptions, researchers employed pregnant goats to investigate the effects of maternal protein or energy restriction on the immune function of goats in gestation through in vivo and in vitro experiments. The in vivo experiment results showed that both maternal protein restriction and energy restriction did not alter plasma IL-2, IL-6 and TNF-α, but increased NO concentration at gestation day 145, while the in vitro peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) cell culture experiment showed a different result that maternal protein or energy restriction increased IL-6 level produced from PBMCs. Later, a specific cell culture experiment was carried out to explore the role of nitric oxide in regulating cytokine production though adding sodium nitroprusside (SNP), a nitric oxide donor, or NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester, hydrochloride (L-NAME), a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor. These results indicated that plasma NO acted as a regulator of cytokine function exhibiting negative feedback to maintain steady plasma IL-6 concentration in protein or energy restriction goats during late gestation. Although the cytokine level were not changed by protein or energy restriction, the important regulator (increased high NO level) might result in a detrimental impact on the uterus and placenta, thereby retarding placental and fetal growth.
This research has enriched our knowledge on fetal programming. It will also be helpful to reduce the programming influenced by nutritional restriction in goat and other ruminants, and to provide strategies for nutrition manipulation during gestation. This study was financially supported by CAS Visiting Professorship for Senior International Scientists (grant number 2010T2S13) and CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams (grant number KZCX2-YW-T07). The main findings of this study have published on Journal of Endocrinology in April (doi: 10.1530/JOE-11-0442).