Sex-specific programming effects of parental obesity in pre-implantation embryonic development

Obesity is a global rising problem with epidemiological dimension. Obese parents can have programming effects on their offspring leading to obesity and associated diseases in later life. This constitutes a vicious circle. Epidemiological data and studies in rodents demonstrated differential programming effects in male and female offspring, but the timing of their developmental origin is not known.

This study investigated if sex-specific programming effects of parental obesity can already be detected in the pre-implantation period. Diet-induced obese male or female mice were mated with normal-weight partners and blastocysts were recovered.

Gene expression profiling revealed sex-specific responses of the blastocyst transcriptome to maternal and paternal obesity. The changes in the transcriptome of male blastocysts were more pronounced than those of female blastocysts, with a stronger impact of paternal than of maternal obesity. The sperm of obese mice revealed an increased abundance of several miRNAs compared with lean mice.

Our study indicates that sex-specific programming effects of parental obesity already start in the pre-implantation period and reveals specific alterations of the sperm miRNA profile as mechanistic link to programming effects of paternal obesity.