Dietary stress triggers autophagy and apoptotic signalling pathways in the rat ovary

Dieting is a global emerging trend in recent years as more people strive to adhere to food restriction plans for weight management in obese people and to achieve desired slim body. This strategy may have unforeseen repercussions in females that may affect reproductive potential. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the impact of dietary stress on reproductive hormone levels, histoarchitecture of the ovary, autophagy and apoptosis markers in the rat ovary. Data suggest that dietary stress caused due to food deprivation decreased body weight and ovary weight, luteinising hormone, follicular-stimulating hormone and estradiol-17β levels. The dietary stress reduced the number of primary follicles, altered the histoarchitecture of the ovary, increased number of fragmented and irregularly shaped oocytes. Dietary stress induced autophagy signalling by inhibiting mammalian target of rapamycin and increasing Lamp-1, LC-3 and Beclin-1 in the ovarian follicles. In addition, dietary stress induced proapoptotic signalling pathway by decreasing Bcl-2 and increasing Bax as well as cytochrome-c expressions in the ovary. Taken together, these findings suggest that dietary stress caused due to food deprivation reduced reproductive hormones levels, induced autophagy and apoptotic signalling pathways that affected histoarchitecture of the ovary, ovarian function, oocyte quality and thereby reproductive potential.