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Updated: Jun 17, 2025

Author Spotlight: Studying the Impact of Maternal Dietary Deficiencies on Long-Term Offspring Health Outcomes
03:19

Author Spotlight: Studying the Impact of Maternal Dietary Deficiencies on Long-Term Offspring Health Outcomes

Published on: June 28, 2024

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A co-ordinated transcriptional programme in the maternal liver supplies long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids to the

Risha Amarsi1,2, Samuel Furse3,4, Mary A M Cleaton5

  • 1Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King's College London, London, SE19RT, UK.

Nature Communications
|August 8, 2024
PubMed

The long and very long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) are preferentially transported by the mother to the fetus. Failure to supply LC-PUFAs is strongly linked with stillbirth, fetal growth restriction, and impaired neurodevelopmental outcomes. However, dietary supplementation during pregnancy is unable to simply reverse these outcomes, suggesting imperfectly understood interactions between dietary fatty acid intake and the molecular mechanisms of maternal supply. Here we employ a comprehensive approach combining untargeted and targeted lipidomics with transcriptional profiling of maternal and fetal tissues in mouse pregnancy. Comparison of wild-type mice with genetic models of impaired lipid metabolism allows us to describe maternal hepatic adaptations required to provide LC-PUFAs to the developing fetus. A late pregnancy-specific, selective activation of the Liver X Receptor signalling pathway dramatically increases maternal supply of LC-PUFAs within circulating phospholipids. Crucially, genetic ablation of this pathway in the mother reduces LC-PUFA accumulation by the fetus, specifically of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a critical nutrient for brain development.

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