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An adverse intrauterine environment, induced by a chromium-restricted diet, is a potential cause of metabolic disease in adult life. Up to now, the relative mechanism has not been clear. C57BL female mice were time-mated and fed either a control diet (CD), or a chromium-restricted diet (CR) throughout pregnancy and the lactation period. After weaning, some offspring continued the diet diagram (CD-CD or CR-CR), while other offspring were transferred to another diet diagram (CD-CR or CR-CD). At 32 weeks of age, glucose metabolism parameters were measured, and the liver from CR-CD group and CD-CD group was analyzed using a gene array. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and Western blot were used to verify the result of the gene array. A maternal chromium-restricted diet resulted in obesity, hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, increased area under the curve (AUC) of glucose in oral glucose tolerance testing and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). There were 463 genes that differed significantly (>1.5-fold change, p < 0.05) between CR-CD offspring (264 up-regulated genes, 199 down-regulated genes) and control offspring. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway and STRING (Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins) analysis revealed that the insulin signaling pathway and Wnt signaling pathway were in the center of the gene network. Our study provides the first evidence that maternal chromium deficiency influences glucose metabolism in pups through the regulation of insulin signaling and Wnt signaling pathways. Full article

It is now broadly accepted that the nutritional environment in early life is a key factor in susceptibility to metabolic diseases. In this study, we evaluated the effects of maternal chromium restriction in vivo on the modulation of lipid metabolism and the mechanisms involved in this process. Sixteen pregnant C57BL mice were randomly divided into two dietary treatments: a control (C) diet group and a low chromium (L) diet group. The diet treatment was maintained through gestation and lactation period. After weaning, some of the pups continued with either the control diet or low chromium diet (CC or LL), whereas other pups switched to another diet (CL or LC). At 32 weeks of age, serum lipid metabolism, proinflammatory indexes, oxidative stress and anti-oxidant markers, and DNA methylation status in adipose tissue were measured. The results indicated that the maternal low chromium diet increased body weight, fat pad weight, serum triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), malondialdehyde (MDA), and oxidized glutathione (GSSG). There was a decrease in serum reduced/oxidized glutathione (GSH/GSSG) ratio at 32 weeks of age in female offspring. From adipose tissue, we identified 1214 individual hypomethylated CpG sites and 411 individual hypermethylated CpG sites in the LC group when compared to the CC group. Pathway analysis of the differential methylation genes revealed a significant increase in hypomethylated genes in the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway in the LC group. Our study highlights the importance of the MAPK signaling pathway in epigenetic changes involved in the lipid metabolism of the offspring from chromium-restricted dams. Full article