Emerging research has shown that subtle factors during pregnancy and gestation can influence long-term health in offspring. In an attempt to be proactive, we set out to explore whether a nonpharmacological intervention, perinatal exercise, might improve offspring health. Female mice were separated into sedentary or exercise cohorts, with the exercise cohort having voluntary access to a running wheel prior to mating and during pregnancy and nursing. Offspring were weaned, and analyses were performed on the mature offspring that did not have access to running wheels during any portion of their lives. Perinatal exercise caused improved glucose disposal following an oral glucose challenge in both female and male adult offspring (P Ͻ 0.05 for both). Blood glucose concentrations were reduced to lower values in response to an intraperitoneal insulin tolerance test for both female and male adult offspring of parents with access to running wheels (P Ͻ 0.05 and P Ͻ 0.01, respectively). Male offspring from exercised dams showed increased percent lean mass and decreased fat mass percent compared with male offspring from sedentary dams (P Ͻ 0.01 for both), but these parameters were unchanged in female offspring. These data suggest that short-term maternal voluntary exercise prior to and during healthy pregnancy and nursing can enhance long-term glucose homeostasis in offspring.running; pregnancy; programming; mice IN 2007, 23.5 MILLION PEOPLE in the US were estimated to have diabetes, and this number is increasing (4). Interestingly, and what is often underappreciated, is that the metabolic status of an individual is decided not only by their inherited genes, nutritional intake, and physical exercise but also by maternal nutrition and obesity during pregnancy. In 1992, Hales and Barker (18) put forth the thrifty phenotype hypothesis that suggested that malnourished pregnant mothers produce smaller offspring that have a higher incidence of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in adulthood. This hypothesis has since been modified to the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) (15,17,18).The DOHaD suggests that the maternal environment and fetal programming lead to a higher incidence of several diseases later in life (14, 16). A growing number of studies have been designed to provide evidence for the negative impact of DOHaD, using mice, rats, and sheep as animal models (11,12,31,38). Many of these studies are directed at malnutrition through protein restriction or physical stressors that produce similar effects (8,11,34,44,45), but more recent studies are elucidating the metabolic effects of high-fat diet consumption during pregnancy on offspring (22,38,44,48).It has been known since Hippocrates and Galen that physical activity is an important component of a healthy lifestyle (33). However, knowledge about the contributions of maternal exercise during pregnancy and the long-term consequences on offspring is minimal. In both rats and mice, maternal exercise during pregnancy can improve brain physiology and cognition...

Objective-Physical activity has been suggested as a non-pharmacological intervention that can be used to improve glucose homeostasis in women with gestational diabetes mellitus. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of voluntary exercise on glucose tolerance and body composition in pregnant high fat diet fed mice.Methods-Female mice were put on a standard diet or high fat diet for two weeks. The mice were then split into 4 groups; control standard diet fed, exercise standard diet fed, control high fat diet fed, and exercise high fat diet fed. Exercise mice had voluntary access to a running wheel in their home cage one week prior to mating, during mating, and throughout pregnancy. Glucose tolerance and body composition were measured during pregnancy. Akt levels were quantified in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue isolated from saline or insulin injected pregnant dams as a marker for insulin signaling.

Cadmium exposure is ubiquitous and has been linked to diseases including cancers and reproductive defects. Since cadmium is nonmutagenic, it is thought to exert its gene dysregulatory effects through epigenetic reprogramming. Several studies have implicated germline exposure to cadmium in developmental reprogramming. However, most of these studies have focused on maternal exposure, while the impact on sperm fertility and disease susceptibility has received less attention. In this study, we used reduced representation bisulfite sequencing to comprehensively investigate the impact of chronic cadmium exposure on mouse spermatozoa DNA methylation. Adult male C57BL/J6 mice were provided water with or without cadmium chloride for 9 weeks. Sperm, testes, liver, and kidney tissues were collected at the end of the treatment period. Cadmium exposure was confirmed through gene expression analysis of metallothionein-1 and 2, 2 well-known cadmium-induced genes. Analysis of sperm DNA methylation changes revealed 1788 differentially methylated sites present at regulatory regions in sperm of mice exposed to cadmium compared with vehicle (control) mice. Furthermore, most of these differential methylation changes positively correlated with changes in gene expression at both the transcription initiation stage as well as the splicing levels. Interestingly, the genes targeted by cadmium exposure are involved in several critical developmental processes. Our results present a comprehensive analysis of the sperm methylome in response to chronic cadmium exposure. These data, therefore, highlight a foundational framework to study gene expression patterns that may affect fertility in the exposed individual as well as their offspring, through paternal inheritance.

Human environmental exposures to toxicants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), increase oxidative stress and disease susceptibility. Such exposures during pregnancy and/or nursing have been demonstrated to adversely affect offspring health outcomes. Nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) regulates the antioxidant response and is involved in the detoxification of coplanar PCBs, like PCB126. The purpose of this study was to investigate glucose tolerance and body composition in PCB-exposed offspring expressing or lacking Nrf2. We hypothesized that offspring lacking Nrf2 expression would be more susceptible to the long-term health detriments associated with perinatal PCB exposure. During gestation, whole-body Nrf2 heterozygous (Het) and whole-body Nrf2 knockout (KO) mice were exposed to vehicle or PCB126. Shortly after birth, litters were cross-fostered to unexposed dams to prevent PCB exposure during nursing. Offspring were weaned, and their body weight, body composition, and glucose tolerance were recorded. At two months of age, PCB exposure resulted in a significant reduction in the average body weight of offspring born to Nrf2 Het dams (p < 0.001) that primarily arose from the decrease in average lean body mass in offspring (p < 0.001). There were no differences in average body weight of PCB-exposed offspring born to Nrf2 KO dams (p > 0.05), and this was because offspring of Nrf2 KO dams exposed to PCB126 during pregnancy experienced a significant elevation in fat mass (p = 0.002) that offset the significant reduction in average lean mass (p < 0.001). Regardless, the lack of Nrf2 expression in the offspring themselves did not enhance the differences observed. After an oral glucose challenge, PCB-exposed offspring exhibited significant impairments in glucose disposal and uptake (p < 0.05). Offspring born to Nrf2 Het dams exhibited these impairments at 30 min and 120 min, while offspring born to Nrf2 KO dams exhibited these impairments at zero, 15, 30, 60 and 120 min after the glucose challenge. Again, the interactions between offspring genotype and PCB exposure were not significant. These findings were largely consistent as the offspring reached four months of age and demonstrate that the lack of offspring Nrf2 expression does not worsen the metabolic derangements caused by in utero PCB exposure as we expected. Future directions will focus on understanding how the observed maternal Nrf2 genotypic differences can influence offspring metabolic responses to in utero PCB exposure.

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