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Updated: Jun 6, 2025
Isolation of Pulmonary Artery Smooth Muscle Cells from Neonatal Mice
Published on: October 19, 2013
Prenatal high-sucrose diet affects pulmonary artery contractile functions via MT receptors
Xueqin Feng1, Hongwei Fu2, Xiao Sun2
1Department of Obstetrics, Affilia108760ted Hospital of Jining Medical University, Jining 272100, China.
Insights
A high-sucrose diet in pregnancy alters offspring pulmonary artery function, increasing vasoconstriction. This vascular dysfunction is linked to altered MT receptors, not PKC signaling, impacting long-term cardiovascular health.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Physiology
- Developmental Programming
- Vascular Biology
Background:
- Maternal high-sucrose (HS) diet during pregnancy can program offspring for later-life vascular diseases.
- Pulmonary artery (PA) dysfunction is implicated in pulmonary hypertension, but the effects of prenatal HS on PA vasoreactivity are not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of a prenatal high-sucrose diet on pulmonary artery reactivity in adult offspring.
Main Methods:
- Pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a control diet or a 20% high-sucrose solution throughout gestation.
- Pulmonary arteries were isolated from adult offspring for functional and molecular analyses, including RNA-Seq.
Main Results:
- Prenatal HS exposure led to increased PA vascular wall thickness and mitochondrial abnormalities in offspring.
- Offspring PAs exhibited enhanced vasoconstriction but reduced protein kinase C (PKC) function and expression.
- RNA-Seq revealed increased MT1R and MT2AR gene expression, but decreased protein levels, in the HS group.
Conclusions:
- Prenatal high-sucrose diet induces significant alterations in offspring pulmonary artery structure and function.
- Melanocortin (MT) receptors, rather than PKC signaling, appear to be key mediators of altered PA contractility following prenatal HS exposure.
Abstract:
A high sucrose diet during pregnancy may generate profound effects on vascular diseases in offspring later in life. Pulmonary artery (PA) functions is closely related to pulmonary hypertension, but whether and how prenatal high-sucrose diet (HS) affect pulmonary vasoreactivity in adult offspring remains unknown. We investigated the alterations of PA reactivity in postnatal offspring exposed to prenatal HS. Pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a tap water or 20 % high sucrose solution throughout pregnancy. Pulmonary arteries from adult offspring were isolated and tested for all experiments. Prenatal HS increased vascular wall thickness, resulted in swollen mitochondria, and altered myofilament distribution in vascular smooth muscle layers of PA. Notably, the offspring's PAs from HS group showed increased vasoconstriction, but reduced PKC function and expression, suggesting that the dysfunction was not primary linked to PKC signals. RNA-Seq analysis of PA revealed that the MT1R and MT2AR genes were significantly increased in the HS group, but their protein levels decreased. This suggests that MT receptors, rather than PKC signaling, are the key factors to influencing vascular contraction of PAs exposure to prenatal HS.
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