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Published on: January 27, 2016
Early leucine programming on protein utilization and mTOR signaling by DNA methylation in zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Qiang-Sheng Zhu1,2, Jie Wang1,2, Shan He1,2
1College of Fisheries, Chinese Perch Research Center, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070 China.
Background:
Early nutritional programming affects a series of metabolism, growth and development in mammals. Fish also exhibit the developmental plasticity by early nutritional programming. However, little is known about the effect of early amino acid programming on growth and metabolism.
Methods:
In the present study, zebrafish (Danio rerio) was used as the experimental animal to study whether early leucine stimulation can programmatically affect the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway, growth and metabolism in the later life, and to undercover the mechanism of epigenetic regulation. Zebrafish larvas at 3 days post hatching (dph) were raised with 1.0% leucine from 3 to 13 dph during the critical developmental stage, then back to normal water for 70 days (83 dph).
Results:
The growth performance and crude protein content of zebrafish in the early leucine programming group were increased, and consistent with the activation of the mTOR signaling pathway and the high expression of genes involved in the metabolism of amino acid and glycolipid. Furthermore, we compared the DNA methylation profiles between the control and leucine-stimulated zebrafish, and found that the methylation levels of CG-differentially methylated regions (DMGs) and CHH-DMGs of genes involved in mTOR signaling pathway were different between the two groups. With quantitative PCR analysis, the decreased methylation levels of CG type of Growth factor receptor-bound protein 10 (Grb10), eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) and mTOR genes of mTOR signaling pathway in the leucine programming group, might contribute to the enhanced gene expression.
Conclusions:
The early leucine programming could improve the protein synthesis and growth, which might be attributed to the methylation of genes in mTOR pathway and the expression of genes involved in protein synthesis and glycolipid metabolism in zebrafish. These results could be beneficial for better understanding of the epigenetic regulatory mechanism of early nutritional programming.
