The effects of dietary edible bird nest supplementation on learning and memory functions of multigenerational mice

Edible bird nest (EBN) is a natural food product produced from edible nest swiftlet's saliva which consists of glycoproteins as one of its main components; these glycoproteins contain an abundant of sialic acid. The dietary EBN supplementation has been reported to enhance brain functions in mammals and that the bioactivities and nutritional value of EBN are important during periods of rapid brain growth particularly for preterm infant. However, the effects of EBN in maternal on multigeneration learning and memory function still remain unclear. Thus, the present study aimed to determine the effects of maternal EBN supplementation on learning and memory function of their first (F1)- and second (F2)-generation mice.

CJ57BL/6 breeder F0 mice were fed with EBN (10 mg/kg) from different sources. After 6 weeks of diet supplementations, the F0 animals were bred to produce F1 and F2 animals. At 6 weeks of age, the F1 and F2 animals were tested for spatial recognition memory using a Y-maze test. The sialic acid content from EBN and brain gene expression were analyzed using HPLC and PCR, respectively.

All EBN samples contained glycoprotein with high level of sialic acid. Dietary EBN supplementation also showed an upregulation of GNE, ST8SiaIV, SLC17A5, and BDNF mRNA associated with an improvement in Y-maze cognitive performance in both generations of animal. Qualitatively, the densities of synaptic vesicles in the presynaptic terminal were higher in the F1 and F2 animals which might derive from maternal EBN supplementation.

This study provided a solid foundation toward the growing research on nutritional intervention from dietary EBN supplementation on cognitive and neurological development in the generation of mammals.