Development of a mechanistic mouse model for understanding obesity-associated early pregnancy complications at...

Due to sedentary and modern life-style, the occurrence of obesity among women of reproductive age is increasing. There are several human studies which suggest that obesity can cause early miscarriages or early failure of pregnancy due to disruption in the early pregnancy events like implantation, invasion, proliferation and metabolic homeostasis in between mother and fetus. But, when we curated the literature, we found mainly population studies and meta-analysis about the concerned topic and a very few mechanistic studies are available. But, for proper treatment of early pregnancy complications in obese women, more mechanistic studies are needed. Therefore, the present study has attempted to develop an obesity associated early miscarriage model in Swiss albino mice. Furthermore, the study has been divided into two parts, the first parts deals with the development of obesity in female mice by feeding them with high fat diet (HFD) and validation of obese model by various biochemical and histochemical techniques. In the second part of the study these obese mice were set for the mating and has been sacrificed in between GD10.5-GD11.5 to observe the impact of obesity on early pregnancy outcome. We found deteriorated liver, uterine functions along with resorption of fetus in obese group when compared to the healthy control. Further, the compromised early pregnancy events have been validated by various biochemical and histochemical techniques as compared to the normal pregnant control. This is a novel double model development method in mice and will help in addressing various pregnancy related challenges in future.